H—lB

(c) Clerical Workers Ex-servicemen with little or no previous experience, but in many cases with a good educational background who wish to follow a clerical occupation after demobilization, are faced with the difficulty that employers cannot reasonably and economically provide them with a suitable wage in view of their limited experience. It has therefore been decided to apply a subsidy in suitable cases in order to stimulate engagement, ensure adequate training, and provide a wage that allows of a reasonable standard of living, and agreement to this end has been reached with the New Zealand Clerical Workers* Union and other clerical unions concerned. (d) Law and Accountants' Clerks, Surveyors, Architects, and Journalists By arrangements now finalized many young men who would normally have entered commercial or professional life may now receive that opportunity which would otherwise have been lost through war service. Negotiations with the New Zealand Law Society and Newspaper Proprietors' Association led to agreement on term of training and general conditions for new entrants and returning employees as law clerks and journalists. Similar negotiations with the Accountants' Society, Survey Board, and Institute of Architects did not reach complete agreement, the organizations concerned leaving their individual members to accept the terms and conditions offered by the Department. The number of trainees and employers accepting the conditions in all the above professions has been, and is, satisfactory. The procedure is similar to that of the trades, and the Department is advised by Trade Training Advisory Committees, the composition of which has previously been mentioned. Trainees are required to accept the obligation, and employers, to ensure compliance of the requisite study course for the degree or' diploma of the society, institute, or board concerned. (e) Plumbers Consequent on the gazetting of the Kehabilitation (Plumbers) Begulations 1945, the Plumbers' Board has discretion to permit an ex-serviceman to sit the registration examination after having been engaged for not less than three years either as an apprentice or as a rehabilitation trade trainee, provided not less than six months of this period has been undertaken after completion of military service, and to grant registration to an ex-serviceman who has passed the examinations and who has been engaged for not less than four years as an apprentice or a trade trainee. This means that the period of training in this trade for an ex-serviceman without previous trade experience has been reduced from six to four years, and the Board is now subsidizing wages in the plumbing trade on this basis. (/) Administration The Table in Appendix VIII of this report, showing the numbers in detail of the various trades, gives an indication of the success of the subsidized training scheme. This achievement would have been difficult without the whole-hearted co-operation of employers' organizations and trade-unions throughout the country in the original negotiations and their support of the administration in arranging contracts between the parties concerned. The Board wishes to acknowledge its appreciation to all who have contributed to the success of the scheme. (iv) " C " Class Training 1. This form of training assistance caters for the resumption of apprenticeships interrupted by war service and revived under the provisions of the Suspension of Apprenticeship Begulations 1944. 2. Decisions of the Arbitration Court during the year considerably affected apprenticeship contracts, and naturally affected those revived under the 1944 Regulations, along with others. The increases in the scale rates of wages granted by the Court were

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