UNEMPLOYMENT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 197, 19 July 1935, Page 7

UNEMPLOYMENT

HOW PROBLEM HAS ALTERED. “The problem of unemployment m New Zealand to-day differs widely from the problem as it was understood in 1929,” said Mr W. Bromley during the course of an address to the Dannevirke Rotary Club to-day. “From an unemployment problem that was largely seasonal, the position has changed to a problem of chronic large scale unemployment,” be continued. “During the same period, and asj sociated with the problem of unein- | ploynient, as a country we have emergj ed from a position as exporters pi'ivi- | leged to work on the easy assumption i that England offered a bottoriiless market for our produce at profitable I prices to a position where our export market is being restricted by quotas, and where export prices barely, meet production costs. Dependent to the extent we are tor the value of our exportable products, the single factor of a sharp drop in export prices would have had a tremendous adverse effect on our general employment position. Tho difficulty has been greatly accentuated, however, by the introduction of machinery to displace laboui. As an instance, despite tho depressed state of our dairying industry, milking machine plants to take the place of labour on the farm are being installed at the rate of over 1000 plants per annum. Nor has this practice of introducing machinery to displace labour been confined to our farming industry ; it is as much in evidence in our factories, in our workshops, and on our waterfront. Whilst this policy of rationalisation goes merrily on, we have, as at the end of last month, 53,241 adult males wholly or partially dependent upon the Unemployment Fund. This group, during the past four years, has fluctuated between the minimum of 44,000 and the maximum of 75,246. The men wholly de-' pendent upon the board’s intermittent work scheme, known as Scheme 5, or on sustenance payments—that is men without any definite contract of employment—have fluctuated between the minimum of 31,884 and the maximum of 45,749. Let me at this stage direct your attention to this fact. The farmer or the industrialist called upon to make a decision on the question of introducing or not introducing a machine On his farm, or in his business to take the place of man-labour, has no accepted responsibility for the welfare of the worker who is displaced, apart from paying his tax like othei persons; also the State, now called upon to accept the responsibility for the welfare of the displaced man, has no say whatever in the question of whether the man’s job shall be giver, over to the machine. This, then, is the picture of the problem to-day: 53,241 of our male adults are either without employment or employed as a condition of assistance given to the industry from the Unemployment Fund; 36,305 are without contract of employment because industry cannot employ them profitably. This number could be reduced to some unknown extent if we made a new definition of who is unemployed, and excluded all those who, through physical or mental infirmity, are unable to qualify as being able and willihg work; but for the purpose of this talk the numbers I have given may be considered accurate.”