WAGES IN GREAT BRITAIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23499, 13 May 1938, Page 12

WAGES IN GREAT BRITAIN

MARKED RISE IN 1937 BIGGEST INCREASE SINCE 1920 (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Apl. 23. The general level of wages in Great Britain during 1937 showed a marked rise, the number of work people whose rates of wages were increased and the total amount of the increase, being greater than in any years since 1920. In those industries and services for which statistics are regularly compiled the changes in rates of wages reported to the Ministry of Labour as taking effect in 1937 resulted in an aggregate net increase estimated at about £788,000 in the weekly full-time rates of wages -of 5,161,000 work people, and in a net decrease of £1350 in those of about 4400 work people. These statistics are exclusive of changes of rates of wages in agriculture and certain other employments, in which there was also some increase in wage rates during 1937. In all the industries (including agriculture) for which information is available, the average level of weekly full-time rates of wages is estimated to have risen during 1937 by over 4 per cent. SHORTER HOURS In the industries for which statistics are available ' the number of work people whose normal weekly hours of labour were reported as having been changed in 1937 was approximately 392,000. Of these nearly 391,000 had their working time reduced by aI J average of about two hours and a-hau a week, and about 1500 had their hours increased by an average of approximately three hours and a-half a week. The principal classes of work people whose hours were reduced were those in the printing and allied trades, whose hours were reduced generally from 4» to 45 per week; four millers, for whom the weekly hours of dayworkers were reduced from 47 to 44. and of shiftworkers from 44 to 42; workers on rotating shifts of blast furnaces, whose working week was reduced from seven shifts of 56 hours to six shifts of 48 hours; work people employed in match manufacture; ship repairers on the Thames; limestone quarry workers at Portland; organ builders: and surface workers at coalmines in Durham and West Yorkshire. There was also a de. crease of one hour in the length of the Saturday shift for workers employed underground in coal mines in Scotland.