ABSTRACT
The numbers of wage-earners in work in 1924 and 1928 are derived from the Ministry of Labour’s estimates of the numbers of insured persons in work, with additions for workers of uninsurable ages and occupations. The number of full- and part-time domestic workers is estimated from the difference between the numbers insured under Health and under Unemployment Insurance and their total earnings estimated. The total wage-earnings are separately estimated for agriculture, the railways, the Forces, coalmining and the other industries within the scope of the Census of Production, for which latter Ministry of Labour figures of average earnings are available for 1924 and 1928. Changes in the relative numbers employed in different industries, as shown by unemployment insurance statistics, are taken into account.
There remains a group including commerce and distribution, transport other than rail, and services. The number of wage-earners is obtained by subtracting the above known items from the totals. A weighted average of earnings is obtained for this group. Part of the field is covered by official inquiries into average earnings, otherwise figures of time-rates are used. The weights to be given to different occupations are estimated from the 1921 Census.
For 1924 a total is obtained lower by nearly £200 million than Bowley and Stamp’s figure for the same year. This difference is due to a lower estimate of numbers much more than a lower estimate of average earnings: the new figure of the numbers of wage-earners follows from using social insurance statistics in place of estimates based on the Population Census.
