The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17th. 1924.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 November 1924, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17th. 1924.

s PROFIT SHARING SCHEMES. ? Foi.i.cwing inquiries made as to the j progress of profit .sharing and labour ) co-partnership in the United Kingdom ) during last year, some interesting inI formation has been collected and ap- [ pears in a late issue of the Rritish I Ministry of Jgilwur Gazette. Ac.ordi ing to the returns received, 228 firms i wer.e practising profit sharing cr eo--1 partnership at the end of the year, and the number of workpeople employed was about 323,000, of whom only approximately 100,000 appear to participate in the henfits conferred by these schemes. It sliquld he observed that.

in the ease ol a eousiderahle number ol schemes, such parti', i] alien i.s restricted to certain ( lasses of employees, or i.s available only to those who are able ami willing to deposit savings with the linn, or to purchase shares in the undertaking. In most schemes, also, •mplnyce.s have to fulfil eel tain •onlitions. smli as solving for a minimum leriod in order to quality for benefit. !)l the total firms given above. 38 were gas. water and electricity supply undertakings; 33 Here in the engineering. shipbuilding, and other metal trades; 31 were men bants, warehousemen, and retail traders; and 24 were textile manufacturing firms. About 10 |er (('lit of all the schemes In operation in 11)23 provided for the payment In employees of a proportion of the profits, either in cash or in sums credited to a savings or deposit ncennnt. from which amounts may he withdrawn at short notice, fn a smaller numher of schemes (although this is the normal type of scheme in the gas industry) a proportion of the profits is partly or wholly retained for investment on lieliulf of the

employees in the capital of the undertaking, or i.s sot aside for provident purposes, superannuation, etc. A type of scheme uhieli has heroine prominent in recent years consists in the admission of employees to a share of the piotits by the issue of employees’ shares, either free or on specially favourable terms as to price of dividend. Over forty such s -liemos are at present in operation. More than twenty schemes are based on arrangeincuts for the payment of interest, at a rate varying with the profits on money deposited with the firm by its employees. 11l tin* ease of -eilani schemes, information is available as

to the bonuses paid or credited to employees. For a considerable number of schemes, however, these particulars cannot he given, owing in some cases to the firms’ inability to furnish Hie required information, and in others to the nature of the scheme itself, which makes it impracticable to state the amount of the bonus and the proportion which it hears to its earnings. Whcrc>. for example, shares ate located to employees on specially favourable terms, the “bonus” is that part of the dividends on the shares which represents the advantage given to the employees over other shaiholders—an advantage sometimes almost insusccp•iible of exact calcuation. The average amount of bonus paid under ill the schemes included was £7 (is per head, as compared with £0 os 3d in 11122, while the percentage addition to earnings represented by these bonuses was 0.1. ns compared with 3.9 in 1922. An average bonus of over £l2 per ..end, or 8 per cent, on earnings, was paid by twenty-four firms of more'nnls. warehousemen and retail traders, while in the glass, chemical, soap. etc., group, the bonus averaged (i per cent., or nearly £9 per head.