Employment agencies
Sir: It is perhaps a sign of the times that The Spectator, previously a lukewarm defender of the free-market, should launch an attack upon one of the few institutions now existing relatively free from state interference. We refer of course to the employment agencies, so poorly defended by Donald Cropper, whose inept letter, however, hardly warranted The Spectator's slick and shallow replies (February 8).
Taking Mr Cropper's letter point by point: 1. He is at great pains to say that employment agencies do not normally find jobs for building workers. As The Spectator suggests, however, some do — but what of it? Employment agencies are specifically formed to find jobs — for building workers or anyone else.
2. It is no business of the employment agencies to worry about their relationship with labour exchanges. All they need do is offer a better service — not a difficult task.
3. Employment agencies inflationary?! Do they print pound notes as a sideline?
4. If agencies do encourage staff to change their jobs then this can only make for a more economical use of labour resources. The Spectator's comment here — "An absence of evidence is not in fact a proof that something does not exist," is "footling." What is our usual attitude to people who make assertions unsubstantiated by evidence?
5 If some salaried are "wishful" then this will be discovered to those agencies' discredit and the consequent credit of agencies whose salaries are realistic.
6 The fact that employment agencies were banned by Hitler's Germany should have prompted The Spectator to at least consider the question of individual freedom. That the EEC too does not encourage agencies comes as no surprise. This bureaucratic monolith of subsidy and counter-subsidy has been taken to task often enough in your own columns to warrant further mention" here.
7 Obviously it does not need the government to tell us that the employement agencies exist because they supply a demand. Here indeed is the crucial issue. Should employees and employers be free to patronise agencies? It is sad that Mr Cropper did not bother to mention this (trivial?) issue. Sad also was his positive eagerness to have all employment agencies licensed, the first stage of the process which will eventually abolish him and his agencies and The Spectator too if it continues to advocate totalitarian measures.
S. H. Berry and D. McDonagh 86 Thomas's Road, Erdington, Birmingham
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