PROFIT-SHARING

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 318, 31 March 1928, Page 12

PROFIT-SHARING

IS IT A FAILURE? SOME BRITISH RETURNS Profit-sharing in industry does not seem to be making very fast progress in Great Britain, judging from data presented on that subject in a recent issue of “The Industrial News,” published by the British Trades Union Congress. Outside of the labour co-operatives of production, which play quite a role in the construction industry in Britain, there were 280 partnership business concerns in existence at the beginning of this year, with about 400,000 employees, of whom 193,000 were entitled to share in the profits of the business. In some cases employees must deposit savings with the concern or buy stock in order to participate in the profits, and, in general, it is necessary to serve a certain number of years with the comp-iy 1 efore such participation. Casualties have been heavy among the schemes started in the engineering, shipbuilding ai 1 allied industries, only 44 of the S± companies originally undertaking profit-sharing having stuck it. In agriculture but six of the 30 original schemes are still alive: in general merchandising the number of houses sharing profits has fallen from 92 to 41. According tn details furnished by 205 of the existing profit-sharing concerns, the average annual bonus paid, or credited, to the employees last year was £9 8s 7d. The highest, annual bonus was paid in insurance, banking and other financial undertakings, being as much as £23 16s.