What Is Unemployment Total ?

Northern Advocate, 29 August 1938, Page 5

What Is Unemployment Total ?

Divergencies in opinion between a statement of the Minister of Labour and the Budgetary statement concerning the number of unemployed in New Zealand ware mentioned by Mr C. A. Wilkinson. M.P. for Egmont, in his address at Maungatapere on Saturday night.

i “The 1938 Budget slates that, compared with the depression total of 79,500 unemployed, there were now 83C0 unemployed, with 8000 addi- : tional unemployed unable to work,” ;he said. “According to the Minister ol Labour, however, in .a recent statement. there are no less than 35,796 unj employed. Whom are we to believe? j “We must look further. The Budget j states that no less than £5,105,000 j was collected in taxation last year for | unemployment purposes, and £4,239,456 j was spent on unemployed. Mr Nash j estimates to collect more than ever I this year, namely, £5,377.000, which, with the funds on hand, will provide no less than £6,535,890 for expenditure this year.

Farm l abour Problem. “If we add to men on Public Works, totalling 21,500, and the many thousands taken on by the Government on railways and other departments, we find that the unemployment position, after three years of Labour Government, is still serious. “Farmers are particularly perturbed at the present state of the labour market, and there are large numbers ot clearing sales as a result of farmers' inability to find suitable labour. The main reason is that the wages are insufficient. The farm labourer is a skilled man, far more so than the average labourer, yet he is paid only £3 2/6 per week for 60 or 70 hours of work, while other classes of workers receive much greater rates of pay for less skilled work on a 40-hour a week basis.”