UNEMPLOYMENT FUND

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 219, 12 April 1933, Page 2

UNEMPLOYMENT FUND

Minister Explains Position

The position of the unemployment fund was stated in Auckland recently by the Minister of Employment, the Hon. A. Hamilton. The fund might be said to be in a healthy condition, but the Unemployment Board’s finance was an extremely difficult matter to deal with, he said. , . i “Supposing the board had immediately to meet every commitment it had entered into up to date and that its revenue were to cease suddenly, the state of the fund would be that the board would be something like £IOO,OOO to the bad,” said the Minister. “Putting it another way, if the board were to meet only every commitment as far as the expenditure up to date was concerned, ignoring future commitments, and were to collect all its revenue due to r date, some of which is outstanding, the result would be that the board would be about £IOO,OOO to the good. A third way of stating the position is that if we take the cash balance in the fund at present, ignoring commitments entered into, but not brought to charge and only taking into consideration the revenue collected, there would would be a cash balance of probably £300,000. These figures vary daily so that it is necessary to refer to them as approximate figures.” Mr. Hamilton said that up to about seven weeks ago and from the tirao he asumed the portfolio of employment the board’s weekly expenditure had been in excess of its average weekly income. During the winter the expenditure had been greatly in excess of the income. While the board’s average weekly income was approximately £70,000 the weekly expenditure reached the enormous sum of £OI,OOO for a short time. Not until seven weeks ago did the board manage to bring the expenditure within the weekly income and now it waa spending slightly below its weekly income. That was what it had been striving for.