Extract from a Colonial Office report on unemployment in the Colonies. The table of figures shows the variation between countries, 1948. Catalogue ref: CO 1006/2
Contains original language used at the time which is not appropriate today.
- Which country has the highest unemployment?
- Which country has the lowest unemployment?
- Do these statistics help explain why people chose to come to Britain on the Empire Windrush?
Transcript
The Present Position in the various Colonies
- There are significant differences between the various colonies and employment is a problem of much greater magnitude in some than others. The proportion of the unemployed to the total labour force and the proportion of the experienced unemployed (excluding persons seeking a first job) to the experienced labour force at the time of the last census shown in Table III: –
Table III (c)
| Territory | Total Labour Force Number | Experienced Labour force Number | ||||
| Number | Unemployed | % | Number | Unemployed | % | |
| Jamaica | 559,248 | 143,137 | 25.6 | 505.092 | 88,981 | 17.6 |
| Trinidad | 218,784 | 15,241 | 7.0 | 213,093 | 9,550 | 4.5 |
| Barbados | 93,664 | 7,259 | 7.8 | 91,369 | 4,964 | 5.4 |
| Grenada | 28,239 | 1,549 | 5.5 | 27,606 | 916 | 3.3 |
| St. Lucia | 32,813 | 3,234 | 9.9 | 31,891 | 2,312 | 7.3 |
| St. Vincent | 22,954 | 1,178 | 5.1 | 22,691 | 915 | 4.0 |
| Dominica | 21,934 | 1,519 | 6.9 | 21,310 | 895 | 4.2 |
| Leeward Is. | 48,684 | 2,414 | 5.0 | 48,025 | 1,755 | 3.7 |
| Br. Guiana | 147,481 | 3,731 | 2.5 | 146,164 | 2,414 | 1.7 |
| Br. Honduras | 20,335 | 1,151 | 5.7 | 20,133 | 949 | 4.7 |
| Total | 1,199,832 | 180,889 | 15.1 | 1,132,594 | 113,651 | 10.1 |
- It is evident that though the proportion unemployed in the whole area is large, this is due to the Jamaica figures. In British Guiana in 1946 unemployment was low; and in most of the smaller islands and British Honduras the numbers unemployed were neither great nor disturbing proportion of the population. In Trinidad and Barbados, the figures were high enough to cause anxiety. But Jamaica with rather less than half the total population had seven-ninths of the unemployed (unless there was a fall in unemployment between 1943 and 1946, of which there seem to be no evidence).