YOUTH AND UNEMPLOYMENT.

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3180, 21 May 1932, Page 5

YOUTH AND UNEMPLOYMENT.

Sir, —The following idea has occurred to me as a partial practical solution of the above difficulty. That all employers of labour in Te Awamutu, whose employees, including themselves, are paying £1 or over in unemployment taxes, should make application to the Government to retain, say, 15s weekly and with the same give a youth employment in order to teach him a trade and keep him off the streets. What is good for the farmer should be good for the manufacturer or retailer. If this unemployment continues, where will you find your young men in, say, five years’ time? Can we expect youths to go straight unless they are employed and kept out of mischief. Further, what a help it would be to the family. Also the retailers and manufacturers would derive a benefit by increased turnovers. Also the services would help to cheapen production. When the youth became efficient any employer naturally would want to encourage hint by adding to his money. If the scheme was put in operation Uor 12 months employers would determine what the youth, was fit for. They cannot all be farmers. Manufacturing and retailing is of equal importance to this country if we are to become a worthwhile nation. Safeguards would have to be taken. One is that no employer could discharge another while the youth was with him. We cannot get away from the fact that less manufactured articles will have to come from other countries, including England, but at the same time we would be buying more raw material. This seems to me, Sir, the only practical solution of Te Awamutu’s youth problem. Trusting that others will enlarge on the suggestions, I am, etc.. PRACTICAL.