UNEMPLOYED DECREASING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 5, 5 December 1931, Page 6

UNEMPLOYED DECREASING.

The decrease in the number of unemployed in the past two months is an indication that seasonal employment has absorbed a number of workless people. With the approach of the Christmas season it may not be too much to expect that the decrease will be even sharper. Apart from this, there is reason to believe that unemployed are again being absorbed in certain industries. The statement from Dunedin, published this week, relating to the employment of men, who had been on relief works, in two distinct branches of industries, while in other directions the “weekoff” method was being abolished, made cheerful reading. Two months ago there were 51,408 registrations at the unemployment bureaux, but this figure had receded to 48,462 by November 23, and to 47,535 at the end of the month. This, of course, is a total greatly in excess of the returns of twelve months ago, when the unemployed numbered 8000, a figure then considered to emphasise the burden of this social problem. Since then, however, the clouds of depression have grown darker and the number of workless swelled to the recent appalling total. Provided the progress now being made in the right direction is maintained, taxpayers should look forward to at least the removal of the income tax levy for the Unemployment Board, and perhaps to further relief, in the not distant future, in the amount of wages tax. In any event, the bogeyraised by the Labour Party in the general election of a wages tax of fivepence in the pound is knocked down by the latest figures.