UNEMPLOYMENT BOARD

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19768, 9 April 1934, Page 9

UNEMPLOYMENT BOARD

STATEMENT AS TO ITS FINANCES forward commitments ay Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, April 7. Referring to the close attention being given at the present time to the cash in hand balance in the unemployment fund as disclosed in the Gazette No. 7, published on February 7, the Unemployment Board to-day issued the following statement:— Cush in hand does not necessarily mean a cash balance available for expenditure or distribution—it is necessary to know to what extent it is already committed or owing. A monthly income and expenditure statement of the Board’s fund duting nearest to the figures from which the cash in hand figures were quoted, showed, inter alia, that the commitments entered into by the Board exceeded the income received by over £600,000. To say, however, that the Board’s fund was over-expended to that amount would be as wide of the mark as it is to regard the cash in hand as being available for new commitments, because it was known and indicated in the same statement that over £600,000 of the commitments would not fall due for payment until after the date covered by the funds received. In other words, they were forward commitments.

It will create an understanding of the “cash in hand” position when it is realised that in ge: eral practice, with u large proportic. of the relief payments made through local bodies as employing authorities to whom refund is made only after a check of the wages sheets is made by the Board’s officers, at any given date there tire payments outstanding for refunds of wages already paid to relief workers, in the vicinity of £400,000. A further factor visibly increasing the cash in hand is accounted for by the Board’s recent practice of carrying its own insurance against compensation for accidents. Owing to the fact that the sum set aside as premiums against this liability is not removed to a separate fund, the cash in hand balance has been consequently increased. It has been correctly deducted, however, from the figures published in the Gazette, that the Board’s income for the financial year just ended will be greater than it was for the year ended March 31, 1933. A perusal of the unemployment figures for the same period will reveal that the numbers of unemployed increased substantially also. The Building Subsidy. It may with advantage be again stated that, now the end of the financial year has arrived, many of those who are wondering what has become of the increased income were confident at the beginning of the year that the Board’s income would be quite inadequate to provide for the 100,000 registered unemployed they so confidently anticipated. The Board itself is not so sure that the 100,000 figure would not have been reached if the building industry had not been revived by the stimulant of a subsidy on wages. This stimulant has had to be provided from the funds available, and it may be that the Board’s practice of making immediate provision for commitments entered into has kept aside a sum for commitments under Scheme 10 out of the year’s revenue which was not earned and therefore did not fall due for payment until after March 31. This no doubt was accounting for some of the cash in hand at the end of December.

Referring to another point generally made when drawing attention to the cash balance, that relief workers were getting less during the past year than during the previous year: it does not tell the full story. The Board’s policy during the year under review has been directed more to encouraging and stimulating full-time employment at standard wages than to the improvement of sustenance payments. The value of this policy is not to be determined merely by a comparison of sustenance payments in the two periods, but by a realisation of the fact that, although the last financial year promised to be the most difficult year of the depression, and although the total number of workers who failed to find employment under normal conditions reached its peak for New Zealand, the number to-day who are in receipt of intermittent relief only under Scheme 5, or are on sustenance, is the lowest on record since April 1931. ’

In the majority of cases the effect of the policy of a diversion to full-time employment has been a heavier direct drain on the fund than would have been the case if sustenance were paid. The majority of men placed in fulltime employment, nowever, have been engaged in reproductive work, and have by their employment provided additional employment for others; thus preventing the numbers of unemployeCL • f s om reac hing the high limits which appeared inevitable had any other course been taken.