UNEMPLOYED INCREASE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 774, 21 September 1929, Page 13

UNEMPLOYED INCREASE

COMPARATIVE POSITION NOT BAD, HOWEVER

LABOUR DEPARTMENT REPORT THE SUN J S Parliamentary Reporter PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Thurs. An increase in the numbers of unemployed during the last year, but a still favourable position, as compared with the rest of the world, is shown in the annual report of the Labour Department, presented to Parliament today. The number of applications pending at the department’s employment bureaux rose steadily during the vear from 2,578 on April 2, 1928. to 3.414 on June 4. It was expected the number would continue to increase as winter progressed until August. It dropped, however, week by week, to 1,788 in December last, again (after the Christmas holidays) rising progressively to 2,787 at the end of the year, March, 1929, and to 3,896 on July 31. since when the total has again decreased. The total engagements made at the department’s employment bureaux during 1928-29 (in addition to 908 men placed locally by engineers on Government relief works) were 6,409 for the Public Works Department, 1,494 for other Government works, 5,259 for local bodies and 3,201 for private employment, making a total of 17.271, with dependants totalling 29,932. In addition, 422 other persons were assisted by the advancing of railway fares or otherwise. In 1927-28 there were 15,246 engagements, 5,660 for the Public Works Department and other Government works, 5,658 for local bodies and 3,928 for private employment, with dependants totalling 29,639.’ Of tl;e number placed on Government works during 1928-29 (8,811), 6,126 left the works of their own accord in previous years. About one half of the applicants at the bureaux have been unskilled workers. The proportion increased during 1927-28 to two-thirds, and that proportion has been maintained to the present time, the remainder being distributed among farm hands, drivers, hotel workers and cooks, carpenters and joiners, clerical workers, engineers, gardeners, painters and glaziers, storemen and packers, seamen and firemen, shop assistants and salesmen, and miscellaneous. A noticeable feature of the unemployment is the large turnover that has taken place. For example, of the 3,896 applicants on July 8, approximately 1,518 (40 per cent, of applicants) have applied for the first time ' during the previous three weeks. Another feature worthy of notice is that while at the end of January last, some 47 per cent, of the applicants throughout the Dominion had, according to their applications, lost more than three months during the preceding 12 months, the percentage in April had increased to about 77. This is probably due to the fact that at the time of the earlier return the usual large numbers of men were being employed in various seasonal while in April, most of these works had finished and the men had then made their applications at the bureaux. A comparison of unemployment in New Zealand with that of other countries given last year has been brought up to date and still shows that unemployment is much greater elsewhere than in the Dominion. In Great Britain and Northern Ireland the total number of persons (insured and uninsured) registered at employment exchanges on , May 27, 1929, was approximately 1,166,000, of whom 909,000 were men. The latter figure represents one in 50 of the population. As stated last year, the Government Committee reporting in 1925 on the British unemployment insurance scheme, has estimated that the scheme should anticipate an average of 700,000 unemployed persons (equivalent to about one in 60 of the total population). In the United States in 1928 the estimate of the number of unemployed (men and women) varied between two and eight millions, but the most reliable figure was approximately four million, or one in 28 of the population. An official publication states that number has never been known, and it urges the need for information. In Australia, estimates from several States vary, but they appear to indicate that about 32,000, on one in 190 of the population, were unemployed in March, 1928. In New Zealand departments applicants on July, 1929, were 3,986, equivalent to one in 373 of the population. The unemployment committee that was appointed by the Government on the recommendation of an industrial conference last year is now engaged in prosecuting its inquiries and reports on investigations that have recently been ma.de into the same question in other countries of the world have been submitted to it for consideration.