The prevention of unemployment.

  • National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution.
Date:
[1910?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The prevention of unemployment. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    fluctuations, in so far as they reach us through the medium of our foreign trade, we cannot control; but we can, as is shown in the special articles by Mr. J. A. Hobson and Mr. G. H. Wood which follow, very considerably modify their practical effect on the labour market. De- pressions and booms are essentially cumulative in character. A reduction of the demand for some one commodity throws some of the producers of that commodity out of work. These workers, being wageless, can no longer purchase the com- modities they usually consume, and so the general demand is still further depressed. What is clearly necessary is in the first place that we should arrange to neutralise the effect of fluctuations coming from abroad by deliberately concentrating as much as possible of our controllable demand for various commodities in the lean years of the trade cycle ; and in the second place that obeying the dictates of humanity and economic science alike, we should take care that when a group of workers are accidentally thrown out of employment their standard of life—i.e., their consumption of ordinary commodities—is not substantially re- duced. On the first point Mr. G. H. Wood is able to speak with considerable authority, and we strongly commend the practical scheme which he has worked out for one great industry to the attention of doubters—if any such there be. On the second point Mr. Hobson, the first economist to realise fully the vital connection between un- employment and the distribution of demand, makes it clear that all measures which tend to equalise demand and which, whether by insur- ance or otherwise, secure full maintenance to the unemployed and their families not only palliate but actually prevent the rapid spread of unemploy- ment which characterises a depression of trade. Seasonal Fluctuations occur at certain times of the year in nearly every trade, and in some—e.g., the coal and building trades—are very serious. But what the Minority Commissioners discovered was that, taking all trades together, there is practically no seasonal fluctuation at all. In each month of the year some trades are at their busiest and some at their slackest, but the total demand for labour remains much the same. It should therefore be possible, at least as regards the more unskilled class of workers (for the skilled, trade union insurance provides the most satisfactory remedy), to “ dovetail ” one trade with another, a winter trade with a summer trade, so that the workers in such trades may secure constant employment all the year round. This must be the business of the Labour Exchanges, especially of their juvenile departments, which ought always to advise any youth who is entering a seasonal industry to take up at the same time some other trade which is busy when the first is slack. Casual Labour is perhaps the most prevalent and far-reaching, certainly the most demoralising, of all the causes of unemployment. Briefly stated, the problem is this : Practically every big employer employs a certain proportion of casual hands, and each strives to keep a reserve of such labourers hang- ing round his gates sufficient to meet his greatest demand. But since they are never all busy at the same time, the consequence is that the aggregate of all these reserves in any one district is far in excess of the total needs of that district on its busiest day. The only remedy is to induce all employers of casual labour, if necessary by legal compulsion, to draw from a single centralised reserve (i.e., the Labour Exchange), thus enabling the chronic unemployment due to this cause to be reduced to a minimum. These are but the outlines of a great problem. Some of the details are filled in in the articles which follow, but for a comprehensive treatment of the whole subject we must refer the reader to Part H. of the Minority Report ; “The Public Organisation of the Labour Market.’’ There he will find thes«3 proposals fully discussed, together with further proposals as to the provision which should be made for those whose unemployment the State has failed to prevent. To this latter problem another Supplement will be devoted. UNEMPLOYMENT AND TRADE DEPRESSIONS. BY J. A. HOBSON. There are many well recognised causes of un- employment. I5ad weather brings slackness in some trades; many more are subject to seasonal fluctuations; leakages between jobs affect many workers in fairly regular employment; changes of taste and fashion are continually producing ex- pansion and shrinkage in the demand for certain kinds of labour; the introduction of labour-saving machinery or other changes of industrial methods, though not in the long run responsible for any net reduction in the total volume of employment, may cause considerable temporary displacement. Trades shift their locality ; others decay or are re- duced by foreign competition. Such are the most obvious causes of unemploy- ment inherent in the ordinary working of our industrial system. Though no one of them is quite regular or calculable in its operation, they are so numerous and various that the aggregate volume of unemployment due to their joint action will not widely vary, comparing one year with another. Even in the best times all these causes are operative. They may not unreasonably be held responsible for the two or three per cent, of unemployment which the trade union returns give as the average during a boom year. But if so, it seems evident that they cannot be adduced to