MANPOWER CONTROL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 July 1942, Page 4

MANPOWER CONTROL

NEW CANADIAN REGULATIONS. OTTAWA. June 17. Additional controls have been established over the disposition and movement of Canadian labour. Under regulations announced today, no man or woman may take any job anywhere, with a few exceptions without the approval of a selective service officer. “This isn’t freezing.” Mr Elliott M. Little, Director of National Selective Service, explained, “because a man or woman still has the right to seek a job and an employer has the right to seek an employee, but the man or woman cannot take a job, and the employer cannot hire anyone without the approval of the local office. It enables us to control the movement of labour and guide it where it can contribute most to the winning of tfiis fight. We have got to a stage where we must carefully measure our manpower on a priority basis just as materials have to be rationed.” The Hon. C. D. Howe, Minister or Munitions and Supply, in the House of Commons estimated that about 800,000 persons, about one-six of them women, are now engaged on war production in Canada, on the construction of defence projects and the provision of essential materials and services. Canada’s manpower pool also has provided about 500,000 men for the Armed Forces. Including agriculture and civilian industries find services, the total demand on the manpower pool approximates 5,000,000. “That’s a tight manpower situation for a country with a population of less than 12,000,000,” Mr Howe commented.