FACTORY RECORDS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 June 1926, Page 3

FACTORY RECORDS

LAST YEAR’S PRODUCT. 1 WELLINGTON. June 14. 1 The secondary industries of the Dominion are making good progress. Their r l product last year, according to official figures collected by the Government f Statistician. amounted to nearly I £84.000,000. and they paid in wages s £13,500.000. ’ll ie wages bill was a £1.420.000 in excess of that of the pro- a vious year and the average wage paid t to male employers went up 6 per cent g during the period, though the average c female wage showed a slight decrease. 1 The productive employees in secondary i industries, as distinct from those cm- | ployed on the administrative and distributive side, number 67,945, an increase of 3315. half of which is duo v to the inclusion for the first time of f traffic employees of electric tramways j The cost of material operated on in j the factories totalled over £52,000,000. \ It is noticeable that mechanical , power is coming more into tactory j operations in New Zealand. Hie increased horse-power last year was ( 37.495. making the total power 283,403. f The handicap to factory industry ol lack of cheap power is fast disappear- , injr from New Zealand with the devel- ( opment of hydro-electric resources; , therefore it is not surprising that electric power accounted for over one-third of the increase, with 13.946 horsepower, while steam showed an inevens? of 12,953. water-power 11.092, and oil 839. Power used by New Zealand fac- . tories Ims increased by 97 per cent in nine years, and the average horsepower per productive worker has shown a rise from 0.3 horse-power in 1900 to five times that figure to-day. Owing to fluctuations in value of commodities it is difficult to make failcomparisons between outputs pei env plovce at various periods, but the Statistician. with this qualification, assesses the value of output per Cloo of wages showing that in 1900 it amounted ”to £541, that during the peak of high prices in 1916 it rose to £683, and last year was £620. developing industries. Examining the details of increases in numbers of employees the Government Statistician states that printing with 906 and sawmilling 430 showed the largest additions, the balance being evenly distributed between biscuits and confectionery 74. meat freezing 215. brick, tile and pottery 38, concrete block making 88, motor and cycle engineering 299. furniture making 123. flax milling 274. Flax milling bad. says the report, recovered from its depression, the total number of employees. 1228. being larger than at nnv of the three preceding periods. In several eases decreases in the number of productive .employees were noted, the principal industries suffeiing in that respect being clothing, gasmaking and woollen milling. - con siderable quantity of low-grade and cheap clothing was imported during the year ended March, 1920, "bmh 1 caused a period of depression m the ■ woollen milling and clothing trades. 5 The growing use of electricity has no doubt been reponsible for the falling away of the gas-manufacturing industry. . , Summing up. the position m regard ’ to employees of secondary industries, 1 the report states that last year was a record even exceeding the booni tunes of 1920,