FARM LABOUR SHORTAGE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 258, 1 November 1932, Page 8

FARM LABOUR SHORTAGE

RELIEF WORK PREFERRED ATTRACTION OF ( AMP LIFE THE WAGES TAX A FACTOR AUCKLAND. Oct. 31. A seriuus shortage of farm labour exists in the Auckland Province. Labour exchanges in the city report- that great difficulty is being experienced in filling vacancies on farms owing to the preference of many men for relief work in camps and in the city. The position is said to he causing considerable embarrassment to dairy farmers applying for labour during the flush of the season. One labour registry in the vity has received applications for labour from 34 farmers since Tuesday, but has been able to supply only 14 of them. It has on its books 31 jobs in the Waikato alone, but only a fraction of them can be filled. The New Zealand Herald published 60 advertisements on Friday offering positions to youths and men for milking, harvesting and general work about the farm. On Saturday 61 advertisements appeared and this morning the number is 33. On the corresponding days of the month last year similar advertisements numbered 25, 23 and 20 respectively. Reduction of Wages.

“Farmers will never be able to get the labour they want while there are single men’s relief camps,” said the principal of a city labour registry office on Saturday. “I could place 25 or 30 youths on farms to-day, but I simply cannot get them. Suitable youths have been persuaded to go to the relief vamps, and apparently they now consider that they would be no better off if they left and went on to farms under present conditions. “Farm hands’ wages have come down from an average of 25s or 30s a week, which were the prevailing rates last year, to 15s or 20s this year. In the relief camps established in the Ohinemuri County a man can get 25s a week, ’ess about 10s for food; that is to say, 15s for 48 hours’ work. So how can you expect men to go on to farms and work from 4.30 a m. to 7.30 p.m. seven days a week for the same money? Even when the relief pay is smaller the difference is not so great that men will be induced to leave camps where they have made many ffriends to go on to lonely farms where the food and accommodation are an unknown quantity. The relief camps should be abolished, if not all the year round, then certainly during the summer months.” “Better Off in Belief Camps.” “It is not only single men,” he added. “Married couples •cannot be got for farm work at any price, because they are better off on relief work, where they are usually able to get substantial concessions in the way of cheap meat and reduced rent. “It must be remembered that whereas relief wages are not, farm wages are subject to a deduction for unemployment tax. Out of a wage of 20s the Unemployment Board takes 2s Is off the wage and Is off an imaginary sum assessed for board—so that all the worker receives is 18s. That is another reason why so many men find relief work more attractive. I know a boy who earns 2s 6d a week on a farm and Is is taken away from him by the Unemployment Board—l-jd off wages and Is off board. If the farm is any distance away the man also has to pay his railway or service-car fare to get there. Some farmers repay this money if the labourer stays with them for three months, but some fanners neglect to do even that.”