Unemployment in Britain in the 1930s

1
Unemployment in Britain in the 1930s
2
Aims of the lesson

• By the end of this lesson you will learn
• About the levels and distribution of unemployment
  in Britain during the 1930s
• To make inferences from the sources
• How to answer a statistic based examination
  question

3
Background

• Unemployment was highest in coal, iron, steel
  cotton and shipbuilding industries
• North-east, Scotland and Wales were hardest hit
• 1932 35 of miners and 62 of shipbuilders were
  unemployed
• Not evenly spread mine closing could devastate

4
Unemployment

• 1932 to 37 80 of new factories built in south
  east. Car making etc. Did not rely on coal
  electricity instead
• London and South east had low unemployment
• If you lived in the right area of the country the
  depression was something that happened to other
  people.

5
Looking at statistics

• Use DAMMIT to help you
• What are the limitations of the statistics?
• Where do they come from? Are they biased?
  Government figures?
• Do not focus entirely on what the statistics say
  you cannot get big marks in the exam for this.