Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1850495947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-233603

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Off.

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: xviii, 580 S.; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter III. - The employment of the factory worker

Collection:: Economics Books

39 turnover, to which we have referred, involves the creation almost every month of a large number of vacancies, so that ordinarily the worker who is out of a job need not long remain unemployed. This constant turnover does not, of course, increase the total amount of employment. It has rather the opposite effect, for the fact that new workers can secure posts without much delay tends to attract to industry an unnecessarily large. number of workers. If, as we have recommended, each factory endeavours to build up a more regular labour force, the result will be to deter workers who are superfluous from entering the industrial labour market. The second factor, namely the steady growth of factory industry, is of much greater importance from the point of view of the protection of the worker. Between 1892, when statistics began to be regularly collected, and 1929, the only years in which the factory population showed a decrease on the preceding year were 1911 and 1928, and in each case the decrease was less than one per cent of the total. Changes in the definition of a factory have assisted in swelling the figures from time to time ; but there is no doubt that the record of perennial factories generally and of most industries has been one of almost continuous expansion. In nearly every other branch of industry, such as mining and railways, there has been similar steady expansion. In such circumstances it was unlikely for unemployment to arise on any large scale among factory workers. In the larger centres there has generally been a reserve of workers accustomed to fill casual vacancies ; this has for long been a special feature of conditions in Bombay, where the figures of absen- teeism in the cotton mills are high. Until recent years, however, it is doubtful if there was any real reserve of workers willing and able to work regularly in the mills and yet unable to secure employment. The Existence of Unemployment. In spite of this, unemployment has existed among certain classes of workers for some time, especially amongst seamen and dock workers. Both these branches of industry require the existence of a certain reserve of workers, but the number idle at any time in recent years in India has far exceeded this requirement. We discuss the position of these indus- tries in a later chapter. There have also been. periods when depression has forced certain of the factory industries to reduce output and thereby restrict the wage earning opportunities of workers. Sometimes there have been reductions in the numbers employed with consequent un- employment ; in other cases the resort to short time has led to periods of under-employment for large numbers. The jute industry in particular has adopted the method of short-time working when necessary, and indeed for the past few months, owing to the depressed state of the market, the members of the Indian Jute Mills Association have been working a week of 54 hours and closing down their mills entirely for one week in the month. On the question of unemployment in the factory industries at the present time, there are conflicting statements, and in the absence of accurate statistics it is not possible to gauge precisely the extent to which unemployment exists. The tendency of the factory

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation