TRADE REVIVAL IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22305, 20 January 1938, Page 17

TRADE REVIVAL IN BRITAIN

670,000 MORE PERSONS AT WORK NORTHERN DISTRICTS SHARE IN RECOVERY (VKOii ova OWM OOBMIBPO LONDON, December 20. Striking figures showing the sharp advance in employment in Great Britain since the slump six years ago, and the widespread increase in national prosperity, are given in the Ministry of- Labour Gazette.

Among the outstanding facts disclosed are:— An increase of 24£ per cent, in the number of insured people in employment in Great Britain and Northern Ireland since 1923, and an increase of 5 per cent, between June, 1936, and June, 1937. Between June, 1936, and June, 1937, the number of insured workers aged 14 to 64 in employment in Great Britain and Northern Ireland increased by 670,000. For the first time for several years the percentage increases in employment in London and the South-East-ern Division are below the average for the whole of the United Kingdom. While the defence industries have contributed to the improved employment figures, industries outside not affected by the rearmament plan have also helped to a surprising degree. About one-third of the increase in employment occurred in the engineering, motor vehicle, cycle and aircraft industries, the electrical trades, and shipbuilding and repairing. Welsh Coal Industry An increase of 59,000, or 13 per cent., in the Welsh administrative area is accounted for by the revival of the export trade in coal and in the iron and steel and tinplate industries.

The coal mining industry shows an increase of 12 per cent. In the number employed during the year June, 1936, to June, 1937. From 1910 to 1934 the amount of coal cut by machinery increased from 20,000,000 to 109,000,000 tofts.

Of the total numbers of insured persons in employment in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the proportions for the Northern and Southern sections were almost exactly reversed between 1923' and 1937. In the former year the Northern section included 53.5 per cent, and the Southern section 46.5 per cent, respectively of the total; in the latter year these proportions had changed to 46.6 per cent, and 53.4 per cent, respectively. This movement had appeared even in 1929, but it was much accelerated by the depression of the following years, which reduced employment in the Northern section to a much greater extent than in the Southern section.

Up to 1936 recovery was much more marked in the latter section. The slightly greater improvement in the Northerh section in 1936-37 has only to a small extent reduced the disparity between the two areas.