FINDING JOBS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 306, 28 December 1936, Page 11

FINDING JOBS

REVIEW OF PROGRESS SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS The members of the original Unemployment Board were in 1930 enjoined, in the words of the Unemployment Act, “to make arrangement' with employers or prosepective employers for the employment of person' who are out of employment.” Valiant and persistent endeavour: to carry out that injunction have beer made during the succeeding six years but because of the bewildering intensity of the world-wide slump in bus! ness and the consequential avalanche of unemployment opportunity for constructive planning was restricted, anc for a long period palliatives in the shape of relief works organised bj State Departments and local authorities served merely to slow down the ! increase in the growth of unemployi merit. At the same time, the prim- | ary and secondary industries were reSceiving generous assistance from the Unemployment Fund in the hope thai (again in the words of the Act) “ar increasing number of workers shall be required for the eflicient carrying or of such industries.” This hope was not fully realised and when the State Placement Service was inaugurated in May of this year the number of registered unemployed who were receiving relief ir some form from the State was 53,000. A Bold Venture. Viewing the work of the service in retrospect after 29 weeks' operation (May 30 to December 12), one cannot help being impressed by its consistent progress towards its goal as the National Labour Bureau, and by its convincing contribution towards the solution of an economic problem that has during the past six years been the despair of statesmen, politicians, university professors, experts in social economy, and armchair Solons throughout the civilised world. Ushered into a world extremely cynical of any and every scheme for the amelioration of its ills, the figures

supplied by the placement officers showing the number of men for whom employment had been found during the week ended May 30 were regarded as merely the outcome of another official experiment. As a contrast to the impressive total (18,376) recorded up to December 12, these initial figures indicate the wide gap that the service has bridged in the intervening weeks. They are as follows:—Whangarei, temporary 2, permanent 1, total 3; Auckland, 17, 6, 23; Hamilton, 2,3, 5; Gisborne, 1,3, 4; Napier, 2,4, 6; New Plymouth, 1,2, 3; Wanganui, 1, 1,2; Palmerston North, 0,2, 2; Masterton, 9,9, 18; Lower Hutt, 3, 13, 16; Petone, 1,3, 4; Wellington, 78, 24, 102; Nelson, 11, 7, 18; Greymouth, 1,2, 3; Christchurch, 13, 12, 25; Timaru, 6,5, 11; Oamaru, 1,8, 9; Dunedin, 2, 17, 19; Invercargill, 3,4, 7; total, 154, 126, 280. The totals increased by approximately 200 each week until the seventh week, when they achieved a record by rising from 1479 to 1879. Thereafter the weekly accretions have gradually risen, and in the period from December 5 to 12 the increase was 1121 over the aggregate recorded tip to December 5. Over the whole period since May 30 the weekly placements have averaged 633. Practical Results. The measure of the success of the service cannot be estimated by study...g i.ie weekly figures of placements, though they supply evidence of the thoroughness with which it is organised and administered, and of the readiness of employers to accept exassistance in the selection of staffs. i crete proof of its worth as directly contributing to human and industrial rehabilitation is provided in the fact that for periods varying from one week to 29 weeks, 18376 men have enjoyed the benefit of standard-rate wages, and that a great many industries and other businesses have been able to increase their output by the aid of the thousands of skilled artisans and other types of labour taken from the ranks of unemployed or from unsuitable or uneconomic jobs into which they had drifted when there was chaos in the business world. This large-scale distribution of

wages automatically resulted in the creation of a need for more workers, and thus the economic law governing supply and demand continued working to its logical conclusion. Nothing is more certain than that every man taken off the unemployment register and placed in permanent productive employment will have a beneficial effect on the employment position gcherally. Factors That Helped. The operations of the service have undoubtedly been assisted by the revitalisation that has occurred in the world’s trade, its repercussions in New Zealand being evident in the willingness of employers to increase their staffs. An auxiliary of the service in lowering the unemployment totals has been the demand for labour occasioned by the railway and other construction works undertaken by the Public Works Department; but the placement service may reasonably claim to have been a determined factor in the change from 53,000 in May to 42,341 as at November 31.

For the four weeks ended October 24 last the decrease in the numbers of men wholly or partly dependent upon the employment promotion fund was 3279, and during the succeeding fourweekly period a further reduction of 3799 was recorded. Whatever aids, material or economic, the service has had the benefit of, they cannot detract one iota from the fact that, in its conception, organisation, and administration it has been, and will continue to be, an outstanding factor in providing a practical method of overcoming to a great extent a difficulty that has cost the country many millions in material loss and an incalculable amount of human suffering.