H.—lla.

During the year ended 31st March, 1941, 2,233 permanent positions— i.e., over three months' duration—were found for boys and 1,961 for girls by the Youth Centres and the Dunedin Vocational Guidance Association. Table VIII of the Appendix reveals the age-groups of the juveniles placed as well as the industrial groups in which they took up employment. In addition to the 4,194 permanent placements, 430 stop-gap openings were found for youths who were awaiting final placement in preferred or recommended occupations. Included in the placements of juveniles are 273 apprenticeships for boys and 147 for girls. All Youth Centre statistics relating to enrolments, placements, and vacancies invite the same conclusion as the statistics for adult labour furnished in the report of the State Placement Service — i.e., during the period under review there has been a general shortage of labour. As will be seen from Tables VII and VIII of the Appendix, the main shortage is in the following groups: Commerce; personal and domestic service; dairy, pig, and cattle farming; clothing-manufacturing; post and telegraph services; boot, shoe, and slipper making; miscellaneous apparel; other manufacturing; and biscuit, bread, cake, and confectionery making. The Youth Centres have not, during the year reviewed, extended the scope of their organization as much as was expected. Not all school-leavers in the four main centres or at Napier are yet taking advantage of the vocational guidance and placement facilities available for them in these centres, while, of course, the extent to which the Youth Centre organization has been able to obtain the co-operation of primary and secondary schools in all other towns is very much less. This position is doubtless in part due to war conditions, but, notwithstanding these, the vocational guidance and placement activities of the Centres are distinctly local and piecemeal, and apparently must remain so in the absence of machinery to give all school-leavers in the Dominion, as well as all juveniles dissatisfied with their present employment, the benefit of guidance and placement.

3—H. IIA.

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