Government Unemployment Statistics

Table 'tu_pc'

Notes:

1. The 'Trade Union Percentages', which give an unemployment rate for the country as a whole, were calculated by the Board of Trade Labour Department and have been widely used in studies of pre-1914 unemployment. More detailed sectoral information was published in the Department's Labour Gazette from 1893 on, but spatial statistics of unemployment, rather than numbers employed, only appeared in the 1900s and were limited to five groups. In the Gazette for June 1902 figures by district were listed for carpenters and joiners, and for plumbers (not included here). The figures for both groups refer to the end of the previous month and, for comparison, appeared with equivalent figures for the same month in the previous year; the earliest available data therefore refer to the end of May, 1901. From July 1902 these figures were presented in tabular form but both sets of tables ceased to appear after the Gazette of November 1905. The Gazette of February 1903 introduced tabulations for engineering and shipbuilding; including retrospective tabulations, continuous series can be constructed for these groups from January 1902 to March 1914, both series being replaced thereafter by data from the National Insurance system. Lastly, the Gazette for March 1903 introduced a report on printing which continued into 1914. Each of these occupational groups was focused on a particular major union: the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, the Boilermakers, the Typographical Association, and so on. In the case of the engineers, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (A.S.E.) contributed 99,423 of the 128,152 included in the district totals for the end of March 1909, and the Steam Engine Makers' Society contributed c.13,000 more.

2. The geographical units used are as follows. Note that no more extensive definitions of these have been located:

   1. Carpenters and Joiners (CARP):

      District	Name in DB	First date:	Last date:
      London	LONDON	May 1901	Oct 1905
      Southern & S.W.Counties	SOUTH	May 1901	Oct 1905
      Wales & Monmouth	WALES	May 1901	Oct 1905
      West Midlands	W MID	May 1901	Oct 1905
      East Midlands	E MID	May 1901	Oct 1905
      Eastern Counties	EAST	May 1901	Oct 1905
      Lancashire & Cheshire	LANCS & C	May 1901	Oct 1905
      Yorkshire	YORKS	May 1901	Oct 1905
      N.Counties & Middlesboro'	NORTH	May 1901	Oct 1905
      Other Districts of England & Wales	OTHER	June 1902	Oct 1905
      Scotland	SCOTLAND	May 1901	Oct 1905
      Ireland	IRELAND	May 1901	Oct 1905
      U.K. Total	TOTAL	May 1901	Oct 1905

   2. Engineers (ENG):

      District	Name in DB	First date:	Last date:
      London & neighb. Dist.	LONDON	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      South Coast	SOUTH COAST	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      S. Wales & Bristol	WALES & BRIS	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Birmingham, W'hampton & Coventry	W MID TOWNS	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Notts, Derby & Leics.	E MID TOWNS	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Hull & Lincolnshire	HULL & LINCS	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      West Riding Towns	W RIDING	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Manchester & Liverpool	MANCH & LIV	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Oldham, Bolton & Blackburn	NE LANCS	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Barrow & Lancaster	BARROW	Jan 1902	Mar 1903
      North-East Coast	NORTH EAST	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Glasgow & Dist.	GLASGOW	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      East of Scotland	E SCOTLAND	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Belfast & Dublin	BELFAST & DUB	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Other Districts	OTHER	Apr 1902	Mar 1914
      U.K. Total	TOTAL	Jan 1902	Mar 1914

   3. Printing (PRINT). Two different sets of districts were used, three pairs of areas being merged from August 1905 on; figures for 12 months previously were used to add figures for the new units for August 1904 to July 1905:

      District	Name in DB	First date:	Last date:
      London	LONDON	Jan 1902	Dec 1914
      S. & S.W. Counties	SOUTH	Feb 1902	July 1905
      Wales & Monmouthshire	WALES	Feb 1902	July 1905
      S. & S.W. Counties & Wales	SOUTH & WALES	Aug 1904	Dec 1914
      West Midlands	W MID	Feb 1902	Dec 1914
      East Midlands	E MID	Feb 1902	July 1905
      Eastern Counties	EAST	Feb 1902	July 1905
      East Midlands & Eastern Counties	E MID & EAST	Aug 1904	Dec 1914
      Lancashire & Cheshire	LANCS & C	Feb 1902	Dec 1914
      Yorkshire	YORKS	Feb 1902	July 1905
      Northern Counties	NORTH	Feb 1902	July 1905
      Northern Counties & Yorkshire	NORTH & YORKS	Aug 1904	Dec 1914
      Scotland	SCOTLAND	Feb 1902	Dec 1914
      Ireland	IRELAND	Feb 1902	Dec 1914
      U.K. Total	TOTAL	Jan 1902	Dec 1914

   4. Shipbuilding (SHIP):

      District	Name in DB	First date:	Last date:
      Thames & Medway	THAMES	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      South Coast	SOUTH COAST	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Bristol Channel	BRISTOL C	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Mersey	MERSEY	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Barrow	BARROW	Jan 1902	Mar 1903
      Humber	HUMBER	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Tees & Hartlepool	TEES	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Wear	WEAR	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Tyne & Blyth	TYNE	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Dundee, Leith & Aberdeen	E SCOTLAND	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Clyde	CLYDE	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Belfast	BELFAST	Jan 1902	Mar 1914
      Other Districts	OTHER	May 1902	Mar 1914
      U.K. Total	TOTAL	Jan 1902	Mar 1914

Table 'tu_pc':

Table 'div23_38'

Notes:

1. Unemployment statistics for the early 1920s are scarce. From 1921 the Labour Gazette published the number unemployed in engineering, shipbuilding and building for the same geographical divisions, placed on the National Insurance system, plus hours worked in mining; it also continued to report a 'Trade Union Percentage' of unemployment, but this was disaggregated only by trade, not district. From 1922, it gave percentage rates for divisions as well as the number of unemployed within the National Insurance system. By 1924, it also reported the numbers on the live registers at a small number of employment exchanges, without any information on the total number insured. By 1926, it added the unemployment rate, by coalfield, among miners as well as hours worked. Some of these data may be added to the database, but it would seem that trade union reports remain the only sources which can provide unemployment rates for a reasonable number of individual towns up until the introduction of the Local Unemployment Index (LUI) in 1927. Unfortunately unions such as the ASE expanded greatly during WWI, making their monthly returns very bulky.
2. Until the LUI first appeared, therefore, the most geographically detailed official unemployment rates were those published in the Labour Gazette. These were limited to only eight very broad regions; for example, the 'NORTH EAST' division included both Tyneside and Lincolnshire. This transcription is included here for completeness and comes from p. 10 in W.R. Garside, British Unemployment 1919-1939: A study in public policy (Cambridge, 1990).
3. The same divisions appear in tables un_1928 and un_1933.

Table 'div23_38':

Table 'lui'

Notes:

1. The Ministry of Labour's Local Unemployment Index was produced monthly between January 1927 and July 1939, and issued to subscribers only; it was advertised as being 'issued primarily for the guidance of manufacturers and distributors wishing to adjust their sales activities to the changing prosperity of the various local areas, and to make due allowance for such changes in judging the effectiveness of their advertising and salesmanship.'
2. Between 1927 and 1936, the LUI was known to be imprecise because the count of the unemployed included (a) workers insured under the Agricultural Scheme, (b) workers aged between 14 and 16 and (c) workers aged 65 and over, while the count of insured workers used as a divisor in calculating the unemployment rate did not. In January 1937 a 'New Series' of the LUI was begun in which the number recorded as unemployed excluded the above categories. All reports included figures for change in the total percentage unemployed over the preceding twelve months, and those given in the 1937 reports are based on an adjusted figure for the previous year; it is therefore possible for 1936 to compare the rates originally published with corrected rates for the same places and dates.
3. The reports state that with the exception of places within 10 miles of central London, where an estimate based on the locally resident population was used, the 'numbers insured' was a count of the 'number of insured persons whose unemployment books were exchanged at Employment Exchanges serving the respective areas'.
4. When inputting the 1937 figures for changes over the previous twelve months, a number of places had no signs given; these have been input as negative values, as positive numbers were rare.
5. Almost all places in Yorkshire have 'county' set to the appropriate Riding, but 'York City' has 'county' set to 'YORKSHIRE'. The 1927 reports do not divide Yorkshire into Ridings, but the 'county' field has been set to the appropriate Riding using the January 1928 report as a guide.
6. The adjusted values were set using the following code:
   
   /* This command file calculates adjusted unemployment rates within */
   /* the lui table of inter-war National Insurance data. It works */
   /* by creating a table of adjustment factors via a comparison of */
   /* 1936 and 1937. */
   
   set nologging;
   \p\g
   drop table lui_ch_36_37;
   drop table lui_adj;
   \p\g
   
   /* (a) Calculate changes for individual months in 1936: */
   create table lui_ch_36_37 as
   select place=d36.place,
   county=d36.county,
   type=d36.type,
   month=d36.month,
   insured=d36.insured,
   change=(d37.total - d37.ch_l_yr)-d36.total,
   pc_ch=((d37.total - d37.ch_l_yr)-d36.total)*100.0/d36.total
   from lui d36, lui d37
   where d36.year=1936 and d37.year=1937 and
   d36.month=d37.month and
   d36.place=d37.place and
   d36.county=d37.county and
   d36.type=d37.type;
   \p\g
   
   /* (b) calculate average rates for all four months: */
   create table lui_adj as
   select place, county, type,
   insured=avg(insured),
   change=avg(change),
   pc_ch=avg(pc_ch)
   from lui_ch_36_37
   group by place, county, type;
   \p\g
   /* Where adjustment factor is positive, set factor to zero: */
   update lui_adj set pc_ch = 0.0 where pc_ch > 0.0;
   \p\g
   commit;
   \p\g
   /* (c) Calculate adjusted total unemployment rates: */
   update lui l from lui_adj a
   set adj_tot = l.total + ((l.total * a.pc_ch)/100.0)
   where l.year < 1937 and
   l.place = a.place and
   l.county = a.county and
   l.type = a.type and
   a.insured > 5000;
   /* For 1937 and subsequent years, set adjusted rate to reported rate: */
   update lui set adj_tot = total where year > 1936;
   \p\g
   \q

Error checking:

Consistency checks were run to seek out large changes in the unemployment rate; for example:

select c.year, c.month, c.place, c.county, c.total,
diff = (c.total - p.total) * 100. / p.total
from lui c, lui p
where (((c.total-p.total)/p.total) > 0.2 or
((c.total-p.total)/p.total) < -0.2)
and ((c.year = p.year and c.month = p.month + 3) or
(c.year = p.year + 1 and c.month = p.month - 9))
and c.place = p.place and c.county = p.county

Table 'lui':

Table 'lui_gaz'

Notes:

1. This table was created largely automatically using the 'places', 'counties' and 'alt_name' tables, but conversion from pl_name to place was partly manual.

Table 'un_1928'

Notes:

1. Data were transcribed from manuscript returns at the Public Record Office, class LAB.85 (EDS.2 series).
2. Returns from Juvenile Bureaux were not recorded.
3. The number wholly unemployed ('wu_t') includes the number of casuals ('casual'), hence the total on the live register is wu_t+temp_t.
4. Certain large cities (Sheffield, Liverpool and Glasgow) contained a number of exchanges but are included as a single total in the table. For Glasgow, figures for individual exchanges are also included here as 'sub-exchanges'; NB this was not an official title.

Table 'un_1933'

Notes:

1. Data were transcribed from manuscript returns at the Public Record Office, class LAB.85 (EDS.2 series).
2. Returns from Juvenile Bureaux were not recorded.
3. Data series have no separate returns for casuals; these are included in the wholly unemployed.
4. Certain large cities (Sheffield, Liverpool and Glasgow) contained a number of exchanges but are included as a single total in the table. For Glasgow, figures for individual exchanges are also included here as 'sub-exchanges'; NB this was not an official title.

(c) Humphrey Southall, David Gilbert and Ian Gregory, 1996.