THE UNEMPLOYED

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 83, 5 October 1933, Page 12

THE UNEMPLOYED

REGISTRATION METHOD

MINISTER'S STATEMENT

The point was made by the Minister of Employment (thcrHon. A. Hamilton) in. the House of Representatives this afternoon that of the total'of 78,627 registered unemployed only 4517 were without work or ineligible under the board's schemes. The full text of the statement made by the Minister was as follows:'— "I feel that the present adopted method of compiling the monthly returns of unemployment registrations is responsible for a fairly general misconception of the position, and with a view to giving members a clearer picture of the position, and at the sauio time revising the method of presenting the figures to the general public, I desire to make the following statement. "Apart from arranging rationed relief work in lieu of sustenance payments, the Unemployment Board has, from time to time, arranged financial assistance by way of subsidies, grants, or loans for the purpose •of enabling workers to be retained in ordinary industry or to bring about their reabsorption into industry from the unemployment register. In the fourweekly returns of unemployment registrations, as presented up to the timebeing, it has been the practice to include, in addition to those remaining on the registers at the bureaux, all those workers who are additionally employed in industry as a result of the financial assistance granted by the board. "The greater development of this policy followed by the board is in- \ staneed in the introduction recently of. scheme Ko. 10, and has the effect of building up the total number of men included in the monthly unemployment returns. Of a total of 78,627 figuring in the last published return 24,811 are full-time engaged in ordinary industrial pursuits. Details of this number are as follows:— ... Workers engaged in industrial undertakings whose • earnings are subsidised from the Unemployment Fund:— Building tradesmen and' building labourers under Scheme 10 4,593 Farm workers 9,867 Public Works (mostly married • • men) -. 2;017 Highway and hackblock roads 1,261 Land development 1,007 Afforestation (single men's camps) .1,190 4,3Tfl Gold prospectors , 3,852 Miscellaneous '....! , ' 110 ■ • ' ■ ' 24,811 Whilst the following is an analysis of the remaining 53,816:— Men on register at September 2 unplaced and ineligible for relief under any of the board's schemes for various reasons ~. 4,317 Intermittent workers, waterside workers, ' ■ miners, and sood-slied employees registered to get supplementary assistance under Scheme 5 795 Men remaining on register, but whose relief wages are supplemented for full-time employment ... ... 918 Men on register provided with • intermittent relief work under Scheme 5 .. 17,586 53,816 FULL-TIME WORKERS. "Again, it will be seen that of the number classed as eligible for work or sustenance 918 are on full-time employment, the difference between the board's payments under No. 5 scheme and the ordinary weekly wage.-hieing provided by the employing authority, sometimes a local body or Government Department, or maybe a farmer. In a few cases the men are engaged in secondary industries just being developed. In all these cases the scheme 5 payment is being, applied as a-subsidy precisely the same method as adopted in tho No. 10 building subsidy scheme. "To illustrate. this type of full-time employment, I might give the- following examples:—A Government Department is employing 120 men from scheme 5 on additional developmental work and providing the balance of wages to fulltime employment.. A small country district, where the total on the register of eligible unemployed is 59; it is-, found that the full number are employed full time on ' developmental work on farm properties, the balance of wages being paid by. the, farmers. An instance of local body co-operation is that of a borough council in the north where arrangements have just been completed *!or the full-time employment of 160 men on work that would not otherwise be done, the balance of wages being paid by the local body. • ' "It will also be noted that tho ■figures are somewhat inflated by the inclusion of 795 intermittent workers, mostly waterside workers, for whom a measure of relief is provided during the lean periods. Their earnings are _so low during these periods that assistance is warranted. Although these men are following their normal occupation they are included in the registration of unemployed workers. ' "There is also a fairly large number of registered and eligible unem.ployed given full-time employment, assisting in the clerical work in the labour bureaux. These men are paid additional to the ordinary scheme 5 allocation and are employed full time. "Finally, it will be noted that of the total only 4517 are without employment and are ineligible under any of the board's schemes for relief.