Unemployment in May The unemployment figures for May of this
year are a very satisfactory evidence of industrial prosperity: as compared with previous years. At 1,705,042, the total of unemployed is lower than at any time in the last six years, being less by 339,710 than in May, 1935. But better evidence is provided by the figure§ of insured workers in employment ; the total of 10,831,000 is an increase of 472,000 on May, 1935, which is higher by M5.000 than the maximum figure in the boom year of 1929, and by 1,303,000 than in depression year of 1931. But such proof of industrial advance gives no excuse for complacency. A minimum figure of 1,700,000 is a grave matter, and the number of those who have been unemployed for over a year is still 24 per cent. of the total—a hard core of long-term unemployment, as the " special " areas are a hard core of depression in the middle of the " boom." It is the heavy industries, steel, iron, engineering, and coal mining, the motor and aircraft and metal industries, most closely associated with rearmament, that show the greatest improve- ment, together with the building trade, which has also felt its .stimulus. As the pace of rearmament increases a further stimulus to these industries may be expected. Only on the shortest of short views could that kind of improvement be considered healthy.
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