Employment problems among tribal aboriginals

Despite financial encouragement to desert Aboriginal communities, only a small proportion of persons have been persuaded to adopt a Western work style. Some of the Aboriginal attitudes to work and the differing implications of work for black and white people are described. These differences are particularly marked in the areas of motivation, social implications of work, such as status, acquisition of money, and uses to which money can be put. Higher levels of skill are also affected by differing ideas of group conformity, individual excellence, and, to some extent, traditional philosophical concepts. Some of the defects in higher levels of performance may be developmental rather that attitudinal, arising from a radically different childhood environment. It is maintained that understanding work problems from the Aboriginal's point of view may help to circumvent some of them, but radical change, if it comes at all, must come from within their community by their own modification of traditional attitudes.