INTERNATIONAL: Out-of-Works

Jubilantly last week Leningrad and Moscow newspapers played up the latest, report on world unemployment released by the International Labor Office at Geneva.* According to this vital sheaf of statistics the Soviet Union is the only Great Power in which more men and women have jobs this year than last.

Nevertheless Red pride in Russia’s showing was at least a trifle overdone. The land of maximum employment is not Russia and by no means the U. S., but France.

Percentages of workers idle are given by the I. L. 0. as: Germany 23.5%, Denmark 19%, Norway 18%, the U. S. 16%, Sweden 16%, England—where there is most complaint about unemployment—11%, Italy .93%, Russia .84% and France, ”where everybody works,” .003%.

*An adjunct of the League of Nations, not to be confused with the Red Third International, headquartered at Moscow (TIME, June 9). In Geneva, however, members of the League Secretariat tend to regard employes of the Labor Office as socially beneath them and slightly pinko, which they are.