YOUTH IN TRADERS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20359, 17 July 1934, Page 8

YOUTH IN TRADERS.

Scheme That Would Widen Opportunities. WELLINGTON PROPOSAL. A scheme for the absorption of unemployed youth was presented to the Wellington Bov L’nemplovment Committee this week by Mr W. S. Cedciholm (says the “Post”). It incorporated a system of juvenile trade assistants run collaterally with the apprenticeship system, and the main features, as expounded by Mr Cederholm, were as follows: 1. A juvenile trade assistant to be defined as a person of either sex between the age of fo\:rteen and sixteen years not bound by an apprenticeship contract and employed in trade or industry.

2. Employers to be free to employ an unlimited number of juvenile trade assistants, but no person to be employed as a juvenile trade assistant after reaching the age of sixteen years. 3. In the event of an employer employing trade assistants only, and not employing apprentices, then he may be required to indenture some of his trade assistants under clav.se 5, subclause 4 (a) of the Apprentices Act, 1923, which reads: “Without in any way limiting the powers conferred upon it by the foregoing provisions of this section, the Court shall also have power (a) to require any employer to employ and continue to employ such number of apprentices as the Court may consider necessary to ensure an adequate supply of journeymen in the interests of the industry.” 4. The wage paid to a juvenile trade assistant in his first and second years would be the same as paid to an apprentice in his first and second years. 5. A juvenile assistant could be indentured at any time, providing there is a vacancy in the trade and that his employer is willing to indertfure hiift. Provision could be made for the time spent as a juvenile assistant to count in the apprenticeship period. “ Would Teach Discipline.” “In practice,” said Mr Cederholm,

“ the scheme would work in this way. Take the cabinetmaking trade as an instance. The proportion of apprentices to journeymen is one apprentice to three journeymen, and assuming that the employer has his full proportion of apprentices, then he could employ additional juvenile trade assistants to keep his proportion up to the number necessary for the efficient working of his trade. As vacancies occurred in his proportion* of apprentices he could select from his trade assistants the best to fill the vacancy. “ Seme of the advantages of the scheme are as follows:—(1) It favours the employment of all the youth offering, keeps them off the street, and at least teaches them the discipline of trade. (2) It gives youth the opportunity of entering the trade (without being bound), and he does so knowing that he will not necessarily enter that trade ultimately, and if the prospects are not bright he will, while so employed. be on the lookout for some other job. Jf, when he attains the age of sixteen years, he has not changed his job and has not been apprenticed, he will not then be too old to take on some other job. (3) It gives to the employer the assistant labour necessary to carry out his work efficiently and so lessen the cost to the community. (4) It makes (a) of subclause 4 of clause 5 of the Apprentices Act a workable proposition” The committee also resolved to stress the necessity and grave tygency of amending the Apprentices Act.