TABLE IV. Percentage of Insurance Workpeople in receipt of Unemployment Benefit or Out-of -Work' Donation. 1
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837
Trade
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920'
Works of Construction ....
5'2
1-2
0-4
0-8 0-4
0-8 0-6
6-4}
2-8}
Shipbuilding . _ . Engineering and Ironfounding Construction of Vehicles Sawmilling 1 .... Other Insured Workpeople 2 .
3-5 2-4
2-5 2-4
1-2
3-8 3-4 3-5 3-3 1-8
0-8 0-6 0-8
I'O
0-4
0-4 0-4
o-5 0-6
0-2
0-4 0-6 0-4 0-6
O-I
0-4
1-2
o-5 0-7
O'l
4-8 8-1
4-4 5-6 Included
3-9 4'9
2-2
8-4 0-8
below
Total Insured under Act of 1911
3-6
4'2
1-2
0-6
0-6
I'O
3-9
Iron and Steel Manufacture
I'l
Tinplate Manufacture .
O'd.
}' '
2-2
Miscellaneous Metals
Ammunition and Explosives
2-Q
-i
5'3
Chemicals ....
3*2
2*0
Leather and Leather Goods
0-5
0-8
Included
3-6
Bricks, Tiles and Artificial Building
Materials
0-4
0-6
3'4
1-3
Sawmilling*
Included
Machined Woodwork and Wooden
with 1911
Cases
i'3
2-1
Act Saw-
2-8
milling
Rubber and Manufactures thereof
I'O
I-I
Included
2-7
below
Other Insured Workpeople .
i-3
3-5
3-5'
4-6
Total Insured under Act of 1916
0-9
i-7
2-7
Total, Insured Industries .
3-6
4-2
1-2
0-6
0-7
1-2
6-1
3-5
Number of workpeople insured in the
month of July
2,071,000
2,326,000
2,075,000
2,029,000
3,6-52,000
3,922,OOO
3,721,000
4,188,000
1 Sawmilling " of a kind commonly done in connexion with other insured trades." Workpeople engaged in sawmilling actually done " in connexion with " other insured trades are included with the other workpeople in those trades. Other sawmilling was not included at all, prior to the Act of 1916.
2 These are workpeople engaged in insurable occupations in businesses whose main work is not insurable, e.g. engineering operatives on the maintenance staff of a cotton factory.
3 Sawmilling other than that covered by the Act of 1911.
4 Includes " other workpeople insured under the Act of fgn "; also leather workers and rubber workers.
' Based on the first nine months of 1920, Oct. details not being available owing to the coal strike, and Nov. and Dec. owing to the extension of Unemployment Insurance under the 1920 Act.
three, which constitute " the waiting period "). 1 Thus " unem- ployment " and " short time " are not as is sometimes supposed, mutually exclusive terms. The same applies, of course, in the very common case where workers, during a time of depression, are employed in alternate weeks.
A depression is sometimes met, however, by other devices, entirely different from either " unemployment " or " short time." In the weaving section of the cotton industry, for example, it is a very common practice in times of depression to give a weaver (say) two or three looms to mind, instead of the usual four or six. Again, a common complaint among weavers (by no means confined to periods of acute depression) is that of " playing for warps," i.e. of being kept waiting for a supply of the " warp," through which the " weft " threads are woven.
Some term is clearly needed to describe all forms of partial unemployment, whereby a worker's production is reduced, and his or her earning power with it. The useful term " under- employment " is coming into use to an increasing extent for this purpose; it is more scientific than the term " short time " and covers a wider ground. It might properly be used, for example, to describe the state of employment of a dock labourer, who presents himself for work at the beginning of each 4-hour spell of work during the week, but is only taken on for three of them. This cannot, with strict accuracy, be called either " unemploy- ment," or " short time "; but it is a very good example of " under-employment."
Table IV. shows the percentages unemployed among persons insured against unemployment under Part II. of the National Insurance Act, 1911, and the various amending Acts. Under
1 Statistics of short time workers are kept separate from those of persons entirely unemployed and are not used in the calculation of the percentage unemployed given in Table IV. Alternate week working is counted as short time.
the original Act, compulsory insurance was confined to the build- ing trades and construction of works; the engineering, iron- founding, and shipbuilding trades; the construction of vehicles; and sawmilling " in connexion with or of a kind commonly done in connexion with " any of the other insured trades. Under the Amending Act of 1916, however, compulsory insur- ance was extended to a number of the " munition " trades. Apart from the difference in the trade constitution of the work- people covered, these figures differ from the trade-union per- centages given in Table IV. chiefly in including the labourers and semi-skilled men, who are almost entirely excluded from the trade-union figures. The numbers insured under the Act in July of each year, 1913-20, are shown at the foot of Table IV.
Under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 and '1921, substantially all persons liable for Health Insurance contribu- tion, except outworkers and persons employed in agriculture and private domestic service, were required to be insured against unemployment. Employees of local authorities, railways and certain other public utility undertakings, members of the police forces, and persons with rights under a statutory superannua- tion scheme might, in certain circumstances, be excepted. Persons employed otherwise than by way of manual labour at a rate of remuneration exceeding in value 250 per annum, were excepted, as were also juveniles under 16 years of age. The number of persons insured under the Act at May 31 1921 was estimated at 12,190,790, of whom 8,829,320 were males and 3,361,470 were females.
Payment of unemployment benefit was made subject to cer- tain statutory conditions and disqualifications. The procedure required the " lodging " of an unemployed person's unemploy- ment book, and the records of books lodged thus afford a measure of the extent to which unemployment was prevalent in the insured industries. As a by-product of the administration of
