LONDON

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3443, 10 November 1932, Page 8

LONDON

WORLD’S BUSIEST CITY. UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES LOW. London, September 9. London, with its population of more than 8,000,000, is probably the busiest and most prosperous great city in the world. That fact was emphasised by the publication of the official Ministry of Labour figures of unemployment for the month of August. There is far less unemployment in London than in any other industrial area of Great Britain, states the Express. What is more, the position in London to-day is by ail standards better than in any other comparable area in the world. Unemployment in London during the month of August declined by 3737 —the only English administrative and district of the Ministry of Labour in which there was a reduction. The percentage of unemployed in the country of London is now 10.7, compared with Glasgow 30.9, Birmingham 16.2, Newcastle 26.6, Manchester 16.2, Leeds 22.9, Bristol 20.9, Liverpool 28.9, Sheffield 35.5, Cardiff 29.1. Only two out of the twenty-eight municipal boroughs of London showed a fractional increase in unemployment during August, as against July. All the other twenty-six municipal boroughs reported unemployment decreases; small, but satisfactory. Fifteen of them were in a better position than in August of last year. What are the reasons which have placed London in so much better a position than the rest of the country? “A number of factors contribute,” said an expert of the London Chamber of Commerce in answering that question. It must be remembered first of all that London is by far the greatest manufacturing and distributive centre of the world. Every industry is represented in London. During recent years there has been an increased migration of industry from the north of the midlands to London and the south. Many of the manufacturing industries which have moved and opened up in London are those which have been least affected by the times of depression. Thousands of factories have sprung into being in and around London. They are all modern, and equipped for economic production on a low costs basis. They are the -factories able to fight and defeat bad times. They have not suffered to the same extent as competitors elsewhere.”