Trainman News

LABOR SUPPLY
SHORT AMONG
BIG FACTORIES

WASHINGTON—Unemployment, a cloud and a threat on the labor horizon a few months ago, has dissipated in recent months until there are already shortages in critical markets and tight labor supply in at least 19 cities.

About 95 per cent of the nation's labor force is now employed, with some cities showing even higher rates of employment.

If defense production is increased or expanded, the additional workers will have to come from civilian production, or from among those not now in the labor force.

Where unemployment was hovering at the 5 million mark not long ago, it had dropped to 2,500,000 by mid-August. From mid-July to mid-August, U. S. factories broke hiring records by adding 620,000 to their payrolls.

Civilian employment increased by about one million in August and stood at 62,400,000. Industrial production was four per cent above July, and a new postwar peak. Total employment was more than two million above August, 1949.

Woman to Work

The manpower supply can be expanded by 5,600,000 to 69,100,000, according to a special study by the Department of Labor.

There 5,600,000 would have to come from the 44,500,000 persons over 14 years old who are not now in the labor force. Of these 32,700,000 are housewives. So that most of the additions to the labor force would have to be women.

The Labor Department study said that with an armed force of 12 million, war industries would have 3,200,000 more workers than they have now, but the industries producing civilian goods would have to cut their work force by 6,600,000, or about 25 per cent.

Since there is virtually full employment now, and since those coming into the labor force would for the most part be less skilled or entirely unskilled, the Labor Department has recommended that the expanding number of skilled jobs be filled by upgrading those already at work at semi-skilled jobs. That would mean increased pay, thru higher rate classification, even if wages were "stabilized."

Defense plants already have been given priority in hiring. All 1,800 Federal-state employment offices have been so instructed.

The industries in which employment is far below wartime peak are aircraft, ship-building and ordnance, as shown by the drop of 35 per cent in the metal working industries since 1943.

Spots where there are less than three per cent unemployment include Denver, Jacksonville, Atlanta, Rockford, Ill.; Evansville, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and South Bend, Ind.; Cedar Rapids and Des Moines, Iowa; Flint, Kalamazoo and Pontiac, Mich.; Omaha, Neb.; Charlotte, N.C; Austin and Dallas, Tex., and Madison and Milwaukee, Wis.

Occupations showing the worst shortages include engineers, tool designers, machinists, tool and die makers, skilled construction workers, skilled aircraft workers, and skilled assemblers.