MANPOWER CONTROLS

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 22690, 18 August 1945, Page 4

MANPOWER CONTROLS

FURTHER RELAXATION MEN OVER 45 EXEMPT MARRIED WOMEN FREED (By Telegraph.—Press Association) WELLINGTON, Saturday * Further relaxations of manpower controls were announced last night by the Minister of Industrial Manpower, the Hon. A. McLagan. In future all married women irrespective of age, all other women of 30 years of age and over, and all men of 45 years of age and over are exempted from liability for future manpower direction. Returned servicemen from the present war are also * exempt from direction. Most declarations of essentiality of industries will be removed by the end of the year and some large groups will be removed from the list before the end of September. It is unlikely that controls will be removed this year from industries such as hydro-electric development, freezing works, dairy factories, sawmilling, housing, coal mining, hospitals and mental hospitals, certain public utility services, woollen mills, and possibly a few others. Under the new arrangements employers are freed from the necessity of obtaining consent for the engagement of labour within the exempted classes, provided they notify all such engagements to the manpower officer within seven days. All married women will on application receive automatic consent to leave essential industries if they desire to take up home duties. Declarations to be Revoked Declarations of essentiality in respect of the following industries, the Minister added, would be revoked by the end of September, if not sooner:—Engineering (except ship repair and the manufacture of housing requirements), motor garages, the Public Service (except the second division of the railways, mental hospitals, rehabilitation, Housing Department and possibly one or two other departments), the Reserve Bank, retail butchers, boot and shoe repairing, pastrycook establishments, radio servicing, refrigeration, engineering concerns, shipping companies’ shore staffs (except ship repair and maintenance), timber treatment concerns, university offices and perambulator manufacture. “Further relaxations of manpower control will be made from time to time,” concluded Mr McLagan, “but I would indicate now that category A men who have been held on appeal by reason of the essential nature of their employment will be the last, group to receive complete exemption.”