Australia and the World Past and Present

There were 311,640 cattle recorded for Gippsland in 1931. That was only surpassed by Western districts.¹

Most fishing locations saw a minor increase in the number of boats stationed there. But in Western Port, the number of boats went from 166 to 115 and the number of men dropped from 258 to 115 – the largest reduction of any location.²

1930-31 saw the number of “hands” employed at factories drop across the board. The larger categories of factories all showed that they were laying off workers. A figure of around 10% was not uncommon. Factories in the 51-100 employee range saw a drop of 33.9%. The only category of factories that witnessed an uptick in the number of employees were those that employed less than 4 people – with a 20.1% increase. So we can imagine that some of those who were laid off in the larger factories were able to pick up work in smaller factories.³

The Year-Book gives interesting breakdowns of costs and profit for various industries. On average, factories 53.9 of costs went to “materials”. 2.8% was for fuel, light etc. 24.9% was spent on employee wages. That left 17.3% for profit, other expenditure and interest. However, material costs for brick making was significantly lower (17.9%), but their fuel costs were way up (12,5%). For those working with skins or leather – their input costs were amongst the highest (64.5%).⁴

1. Victoria Year-Book, 1930-31, p. 352 ↩︎
2. Ibid, p. 362 ↩︎
3. Ibid, p. 400 ↩︎
4. Ibid, p. 407 ↩︎