The Unemployment Figures The Minister of Labour will, in future,
issue a monthly statement summarizing more scientifically than before the figures of unemployment. The gross weekly unem- ployment figures, however, will still be published. The Government proposed to the Opposition that the mis- leading weekly figures should be abandoned, but the proposal was rejected. It is intelligible why the Unionists, having suffered under merciless quotations of figures which every serious student of the subject knew to be inadequate, should not have wanted the Government to ride off under a lighter handicap. All the same, we wish that there had been general agreement that none but the most scientific figures should be published. There is no doubt that the weekly figures have intensified the ridiculous idea abroad that Great Britain is indus- trially at her last gasp. The gross weekly figures describe without distinction as " unemployed "—at least so far as the summary is concerned, and that is what is usually reproduced in the Press—those who are wholly unemployed, those who are only temporarily unemployed, casuals, and men, women, boys and girls. A total thus arrived at is, of course, much worse than the truth.
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