COMMERCIAL STATISTICS FOR 1956
Prices, Wages, And . Labour (New Zealand Preet Association) WELLINGTON, January 9. About the middle of 1955, retail prices and nominal wage rates reached the same level as effective wage rates, says a publication released today by the Department of Statistic,. The publication, a report on the prices, wages and labour statistics for 1955, shows that in that year retail prices rose above effective wage rates. The trend shown by the graph is toward Reconciliation, but no figures are available for last year. In 1955, retail prices for food showed an increase of 5.7 per cent, on the previous year’s prices, and retail prices for all groups an increase of 33 per cent. In the same year minimum weekly wage rates for adult males rose by 19 per cent.
The report says that retail prices, which were remarkably steady during most of 1955, rose rapidly in the first half of 1955 and remained at a high level for the remainder of the year. To a large extent this was due to the abnormal'y high potato prices which prevailed during that winter and spring. Effective weekly wage rates, described as an index of the purchasing power of wages which are used in buying normal household req-'irements. rose from a base of 1090 in 1954 to 1011 in 1955 and fell to 994 in 1955.
Hours worked by both males and females' remained steady at 1000 on the same base. Weighted average nominal weekly wage rates for adult males in 1955 were 229/7, and for females 152/9. In 1926. the rates were respectively 85/5 and 50/7.
On unemployment, the report shows that at the end of December, 1956. there were 107 unemployment benefits in force as compared with six at the end of March in the same year. The greatest number of such benefits In force from 1946 to 1956 was at the end of March, 1946, when 205 were in force.
In 1956, there were 50 industrial disputes, involving 13,579 workers, working days lost totalled 23,870 and the approximate loss in wages was £84906.
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Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28481, 10 January 1958, Page 20
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346COMMERCIAL STATISTICS FOR 1956 Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28481, 10 January 1958, Page 20
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