§ 9. Mr. CHORLTONasked the Minister of Labour the number of hands employed in the weaving industry in North-East Lancashire in 1929, 1931 and 1936, and the number of hands employed in the machine-knitting industry in the Leicester and Nottingham districts of the same years?
§ Mr. E. BROWNAs the reply includes a table of figures I will, if I may, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
§ Following is the statement:
§ Statistics showing for individual industries the estimated numbers of insured persons, and the numbers of such persons recorded as unemployed, are ordinarily compiled only for administrative divisions, and figures relating to the estimated numbers insured are available only for the beginning of July of each year. In the cotton manufacturing industry the total number of insured persons, aged 14 to 64, in the present North-Western Division (including Lancashire, Cheshire, and the Glossop and New Mills districts of Derbyshire) at the beginning of July, 1936, was approximately 195,000, of whom 33,830 were recorded as unemployed at 22nd June. I regret that corresponding figures are not available for the manufacturing section of the cotton industry for the years 1929 and 1931.
§ In the hosiery manufacturing industry in the Midlands Division, which includes Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and certain other counties, the estimated numbers of insured persons at the beginning of July in each of the years 1929, 1931 and 1936, and the numbers recorded as unemployed at a date towards the end of June in those years, were as shown below:
| — | 1929. | 1931. | 1936. |
| Estimated numbers insured— | |||
| Aged 16 to 64 | 75,000 | 78,950 | 81,300 |
| Aged 14 and 15 | —* | —* | 9,570 |
| Numbers of insured persons recorded as unemployed— | |||
| Aged 16 to 64 | 3,600 | 15,138 | 5,680 |
| Aged 14 and 15 | —* | —* | 46 |
| * Juveniles under 16 years of age were not insurable against unemployment prior to September, 1934. |