The 14,000 visits made by the inspectorate included, in addition to routine inspections of factories and workshops, 1,788 visits in connexion with industrial injuries and compensation, 584 to registered young persons and 880 night visits chiefly in connexion with the employment of women and young persons in prohibited hours.
A total of 629 accidents (45 fatal) involving injuries to 625 Of these 414 (22 fatal), persons was reported during the year. involving 431 persons, were in factories and workshops, showing a decrease of 91 (fatal, one less) for the year, or a reduction from 6.9 to 4.9 per thousand workers.
Despite the continued shortage of experienced staff and the time given to the training of junior staff, advances in industrial safety were made. All lifts and hoists in factories and workshops must now conform to safety requirements which include annual inspection by a competent person, inter-locking fireproof doors, enclosed fire- proof shafts and, where the lift or hoist is operated from within the cage, an additional suspension cable. Fuel oil installations connected to steamboilers, furnaces and ovens must also conform to the safety requirements which were drawn up in consultation with the Fire Brigade.
Women and Young Persons
At the end of September 1950 nearly 3,000 more women were working in fegistered factories and workshops than in October 1949. These women are employed in a wide variety of industries-textiles (cotton and silk weaving, knitted piece goods, garment and shirt- making, spinning); the manufacture of electric torch cases, batteries and bulbs; rubber shoes and boots; miscellaneous metal ware from nails and needles to watch bracelets, tin cans and saucepans; matches; joss sticks; cigarettes; ginger, fruit and vegetable preserving-to name only a few. With very few exceptions the women are on a daily or a piece-rate basis and are taken on or laid off according to the requirements of the business. For example the high employment figure in the rubber shoe industry early in the year resulting from large orders from Britain was sharply reduced later by increased raw rubber prices and keener competition from the United Kingdom.
The number of women employed in all branches of the textile industry increased; women so employed now form about 45% of all women workers in registered establishments.
In addition to the women mentioned above who are employed in registered factories and workshops many are employed by con- tractors on a purely casual basis as earth carriers in the building trade and in roadmaking, and as stone-breakers in quarries. Here, as numbers and personnel fluctuate continually, figures are extremely difficult to obtain.
At the end of the year 1,719 young persons between the ages of 14 and 18 were registered with the Labour Department. Inspections of all registered juveniles, and also of many employed casually in unregistered industrial undertakings, have continued in order to see that regulations concerning their working hours are observed.
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