BRITISH UNEMPLOYED.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9149, 23 July 1908, Page 5

BRITISH UNEMPLOYED.

TR\DE UNION RETURNS.

Received July 22, 8.38 a.m. LONDON, July 21

The President of the Board of Trade (the Right Hon. John Burns) states that trade union returns show that 8.2 per cent, of the members were unemployed, as compared with 3.6 per cent, in 1907 It is impossible, he said, to accurately estimate the number of unskilled unemployed.

A cablegram from London on Match 24th last stated that the Tariff Reform Commission's report showed that, comparing the German trade union membership of 435,000 with a British membership of b39,000, the percentage of German unemployment was 2 3-5, while the average for a whole year was only I£, while the British percentages were 6 1-10 and 4 1-5 respectively. The growth of unemployment was the feature of L an article in the "Labour Gazette" in January, dealing with the labour market during 1907. Despite the enormous figures of the trade returns, employment was worse in 1907 than in IVJU6.1 V JU6. The following table gives the average percentage of trade unionists out of employment at the end of each month in the various years:—

1907 . ... 4.2 1903 ... 5.1 1906 ... 4.1 1902 ... 4.4 1905 ... 5.4 1901 ... 3.8 1904 ... 6.5 1900 ... 2.6 These figures are for skilled workers only, the aristocracy of labour, and do not give any idea of the unemploy-. ment among the casual, unskilled, and unorganised workers. Thus, during the great "boom" of 1905-7, employment was never so good as it was in the years before a.id during the Boer war. It has been much worse than in any previous period of "booming" trade. Moreover, a disquieting fact is that the average of unemployed is now sharply rising. It was 5.0 per cent, at the end of November, 1907. At the end of December it had advanced to 6.1, a figure which compares very badly with the 4.9 at the end of December, 1906.