H—ll

(5) The largest number of placements of women in any district was made by the Nelson District office. The occurrence in Nelson of 25 per cent, of all placements of women throughout the Dominion reflects the assistance given by the Department to meet the seasonal labour demands of fruit, hop, and tobacco growers. The Department has in recent years assumed responsibility for the organization of workers for this work, with the result that the growers in Nelson have been able to rely on a more adequate supply of labour. (6) Of the 4,420 placements of women, 1,120 were in primary industries. Other industries in which large numbers of females were placed during the year were hotels and restaurants (560), hospitals (537), wholesale and retail trade (417), Government services (329), and clothing-manufacture (327). (b) Hostels and Camps (1) The need for the provision of workers' accommodation in congested areas (to which reference was made in the last annual report of the National Employment Service) has not diminished during the year. It has rather been accentuated by various factors such as a reduction in the service provided by many private boarding establishments and the disinclination of private householders to take boarders. (2) Apart from these considerations, the Department's chief objective is to ensure an adequate supply of labour for the more important industries in the main centres, and its labour recruiting programme would be ineffectual without having accommodation facilities available. This comment applies particularly to the Public Service, whose junior staff in selected occupational groups such as cadets and shorthand-typists could not be induced, as part of their basic training, to transfer to the larger Government offices without an assurance of reasonable accommodation being available to them. The need of the Public Service has necessitated the establishment of an additional hostel in Wellington. These factors emphasize the need for the continued operation of the various worker' camps and hostels already in existence and, indeed, give weight to the demand for an extension of the Department's activities in this field. (3) The operation of the Government's free and assisted immigration scheme has also made it necessary to establish immigration hostels, because the difficulty of obtaining accommodation in the crowded industrial areas is even greater to a settler who has just arrived in New Zealand. Hostels provide at least temporary accommodation, which gives the settler a chance to seek an alternative place to live. The great bulk of the settlers have been allocated to employment in the main centres where immigration hostels have already been established or are in course of construction. The completed hostels are : Narrow Neck, Auckland .. .. .. .. Females. North Head, Auckland .. .. .. .. Males. Fort Dorset, Wellington .. .. .. .. Males. Fort Dorset, Wellington .. .. .. .. Females. Wigram, Christchurch .. .. .. .. Males. Wigram, Christchurch .. .. .. .. Females. Central Battery, Dunedin .. .. .. .. Males. An additional immigration hostel for females in Dunedin is at present in the planning stage. (4) Proposals which were under way last year to establish hostels for miners in several of the larger coal-mining districts (and which were mentioned in the last annual report of the National Employment Service) have since taken shape and a fairly extensive building programme in the districts decided upon has had to be undertaken.

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