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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 1. 1966.

Serious shortage

Serious shortage

There is a serious shortage of qualified economists and statisticians in New Zealand today.

Macarthy Professor of Economics at this university, Professor F. W. Holmes, is quoted as saying this in a recent issue of "New Zealand Economist and Taxpayer."

"The universities' output of good graduates is well below the nation's requirements at present." Professor Holmes says.

"The situation is a happy one for those who do graduate, for most of them are getting very good jobs and rapid promotion."

Professor Holmes said that the shortage was hampering the work of many Government departments and private firms.

While there were about 850 economics students at Victoria last year, only about 70 were at Stage III or a higher level: and too few of these were the brightest students in the university.

He thought that one difficulty was that few students learned much about economics at school, and often became interested in economics only late in their university courses.

In a three-fold attack on the problem, the VUW economics department is sending speakers to local schools, reviewing course structures to make them clearly relevant to contemporary problems, and attempting to encourage students majoring in another subject to major in economies as well.