POWER RESTRICTIONS

Press, Volume LXXXIIi, Issue 25214, 19 June 1947, Page 6

POWER RESTRICTIONS

£12,000 IN WAGES LOST

Power Cuts In City Factories ESTIMATED COST Losses in production as a result of the compulsory power cuts last week are estimated to have '• cost industry in Christchurch between £50,000 and £BO,OOO. This estimate of manufacturers’ losses is based on information supplied to the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association. The loss in wages last week is placed at about £12,000. The secretary of the Manufacturers’ Association (Mr R. T. Alston) said yesterday that the avers ge wage bill of one company before the power cuts was £712 a week. In the first week of the cuts it dropped to £563, or a reduction of 21 per cent, on every employees’ wages. Employees of another company which had been working overtime since 1939 had lost as much as £5 last week. The production of drain pipes by a company which was in a domestic area had dropped by 2000 a week. Drain pipes were urgently needed, and housing construction •would be delayed as a result.

Figures given by a clothing manufacturer show how the use of domestic water heaters affects industrial output. Last week, because of the power cuts, which resulted in a loss of one hour’s production a day and three hours’ overtime, the factory had a pisduction loss of 240 women’s garments. The number of units of power saved by the cuts is 59 a week, fnd the total value is 6s 6d. The loss in wages at the factory, because of the elimination of overtime and the loss of bonuses, was £32 a week. To produce each garment the factory uses .23 of a unit of power. A domestic waterheater, if left on continuously, would use about 140 units a week, and this would mean that 480 garments would be lost for each water-heater so used. If a water-heater is used in accordance with the restrictions, it would use about 50 units.