LABOR DEPARTMENT

Evening Star, Issue 14187, 12 October 1909, Page 4

LABOR DEPARTMENT

PROGRESS DESPETE DEPRESSION.

[From Qua Parliamentary Reporter.]' Wellington, October 12. In the eighteenth annual Teport of the Department of Labor reference is naturally made to tho recent depression. "In some localities,", says\ the report, " pressure of unemployment has not been noticeable. ChrifitchuTch felt the depression loss than any other of the cities. Auckland felt some pressure from unskilled labor on the completion of the Main Trunk Railway." FINDING WORK. During the year the number of workers on roads and railways rose from 6,000 to 10,000. Through the medium of the employment bureaux 6,201 men were given employment by tho Public Works Department as compared with 3,328 the previous year. The number of men for whom these bureaux found work has also greatly increased as compared - with previous years. The report states "to find private work for 4,190 men on a falling market has demanded both zeal and intelligence." Of 1,679 assisted immigrants from Britain tho majority were sent to farming works. Some of these immigrants were tradesmen, who accentuated the over-supply in the local labor market. FACTORY HANDS. The number of factories in the Dominion (12,040) shows an increase of 454.f0r the year. Tho number of factory workers, however, has only increased from 78,625 last year to 78,848 this year. One of the causes for this set-back to the increase in tho number of workers is the difficulty of procuring young people as beginners in the clothing and food trades. In some manufactures business would have been groatly crippled by the industrial shortage of New Zealand-born boys and girls but for the arrival of thousands of,, immigrant families, the youuger members of which took factorv employment. The explanation of the large increase in the number of factories as compared with the number of hands is that workers discharged on account of slackening trade have in many cases started small factories on their own account. The wages paid in Now Zealand factories last year totalled £5,710,226, or an increase of £391,207 over those paid the previous year. Taking the chief cities, Auckland disbursed £921,314 among 11,369 employees ; Wellington, £784,177 among 8,263; Christchurcb, £860,700 among 10,284; and Dunedin, £723,962 among 9,643 employees. In the last five years there has been a reduction of about 6 per cent, in the proportion of factory employees under twenty-one years of age to those over that age. The average wage paid to factorv employees last year was £B4 18s. During * the year 803 accidents occurred. in factories, of which four wore fatal, thirteen serious, 216 moderate, and 570 slight. The average was one fatal accident to every 19,712 workers. There were 141 convictions for breaches of the Factories Act. SHOP-WORKERS' WAGES.

■ A four centres Auckland leads in the number of persons engaged in shops and offices and the wages paid, the figures being 4,240 and £253,508; Christchurch comes next with 3,898 ™l£?2S' 76 H Wellington, 3,537 and nino'2o2 ; ", Dd D "nedin, 3,398 and it J V 80. Ine average wage of a shopassistant lias increased from. £B2 10s V? £Bb" lis 6d during the year. It differs m the various centres:" Wellington, £9B 18s sd; Christchurch, £92 3s Ai W I 8 lls lld ; Auckland, £B3 18s lOd. There are fewer youths and fewer girls at work in Wellington Vo a Ar, in , the other centres. There are 12,689 shops in New Zealand, in which on'M, P ersons arc engaged, of whom 2U,i'oi arc assistants. ARBITRATION. The report, in noting the appointment or Conciliation Commissioners, sta,.es that a better spirit is becoming apparent on the parts of employer and employed, there being less disposition to press the letter of an award or agreement to excess. The vear was tree from any serious strife terminating in strike or lock-out. The Conciliation Boards cost £1,472 12s 3d, and the Arbitration Court (exclusive of ».*? t] ,e amount of £2,800) cost t,z,bdb 16s /d. The report contains a table- showing a comparison between minimum rates under awards and actual rates paid, which, it is claimed, shows that as far as factories are concerned Arbitration Court Awards have not lowered the average wage or injured high rates for especially good workers Thus m the various cities in tue bootmakmg trade the percentage of workers receiving over the minimum wage stipulated in the award is: Auckland 66 per cent., Wellington 85*- per cent. Christchurch 66 per cent.," and Uunedin 50 per cent.

UNIONS. . Bunng the year employers' unions increased by one, and in membership ij.v /»«; workers' unions increased by fifteen, and in. membership bv 3,73.1 Ihe membership of workers' unions has increased by 19,000 in four voars. Tho number of cases of breaches of award taken by the department to the Arbitration Court was 552, as against 754 cases in the previous year, and the department won 463 of them. The inspectors recovered £1,561 5s 7d for 311 workers, mostly back wages, overtime, etc. Iho report states that the work done has fully justified the institution or branch offices to facilitate the obtaining of employment by women. GENERAL. A table in the report gives the averago number of children dependent on each married man assisted to employment by the department for each year since 1892. In that year the average of dependent children was 3.48 per man; last year it was 1.77. "These figures," says the report, "appear to show that the decline in the birth-rate is not by any moans confined to those classes sometimes referred to as being enervated by luxury."