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Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1939, Page 5

"There is a distressing numbar of boys and girls of the minimum legal age going to work in factories.” said Mr T. Conly, Vocational Guidance Officer in Dunedin, when he was asked to comment on a suggestion that juveniles were going to work in factories at a much lower age than was formerly the case. Admittedly there was an acute shortage of labour in the factories, he said, and although employers would probably prefer girls older than between 13 and 14 years, they were so desperately short -handed that they had no choice but to take whatever they could get. One aspect of the problem which was distressing. Mr Conly add ■ cd, was that boys going from one factory to another carried their time with them unless they were going to com mence apprenticeship in another trade. The cumulative effect of this after a lad had been in one or two stop-gap jobs was that ho was difficult to place and became a ready-made problem on the labour market.