COST OF LIVING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 509, 18 April 1933, Page 4

COST OF LIVING

The British Ministry of Labour calculates that the average percentage increase in weekly full-time rates of wages at the end of 1932 was 65 per cent. over the level obtaining in August, 1914. When the last calculation was made in respect of December, 1931, the average increase was estimated at 66 to 70 per cent., so that during the intervening 12 months there was a decrease of between 1 and 5 per cent. The average decrease in the cost of living during the year was 5 per cent. It is stated that both the amounts and the corresponding percentages of increase over pre-war rates show a wide diversity among diff erent classes of work-people. In some cases the increases in full-time weekly rates at the end of December, 1932, were equivalent to less than 20 per cent. on the pre-war rates, while in other cases they were equivalent to over 100 per cent. increase. The informqtion at the disposaf of the depaftment is insufficient to enable the average percentage increase for all industries and occupations to be calculated exactly, but the estimate of an increase of 65 per cent. at the end of last year compares with an average increase over the 1914

the end of December, 1920, when wages generally were at their highest level. As considerahle reductions in normal weekly working hours were made in nearly all industries in 1919 and 1920 the percentage increase in hourly rates of wages since 1914 is substantially greater, and at the end of 1932 was prohably between 85 and 90 per cent. above that of August, 1914. The figures relate toi the' wages of similar grades of work-people