§ Sir O. PHILIPPSasked the Minister for Labour if his attention has been drawn to the fact that. in the employment chart issued by the Ministry of Labour the amount of unemployment amongst the 12,000,000 workpeople employed in the insured trades was reduced 3 per cent. between 1st January and the end of June, whilst in the 1,000,000 people who are members of trade unions making returns 1492W the amount of unemployment only fell 1 per cent. in the same period?
§ Dr. MACNAMARAThe unemployment percentage for the insured trades relates to the total number of workpeople, numbering about 12,000,000, insured against unemployment, while the trade union percentage relates to the membership, now about 1,400,000, of the unions making returns. It is, therefore, not surprising that the two percentages should show some divergence, although, in fact, they have hitherto been broadly similar. The divergence to which my hon. Friend calls attention is largely accounted for by the fact that workpeople in the engineering and shipbuilding industries, in which the percentage unemployed is much above the general average for other industries and shows little change as compared with January last, form a larger proportion of those represented in the trade union returns than of the insured workers. I may add that, while the percentage unemployed among insured workpeople provides at present the better measure of the volume of total unemployment, this figure is not available on its present extended basis for any date prior to November, 1920, and the trade union figures are therefore of special value in that they provide the only long record of comparable data available as to the relative level and course of unemployment over a series of years.