OL. 13 No. 10

AT

OCTOBER 1946

REVIEW

ll-time highs in production and crops-A year's view of the labor force-Office of Federal-State Relations-GI education and training-USES activities at a glance.

AN ALL-TIME HIGH" is an oft repeated phrase s the customary flood of July statistics, surveys, and eports appraised the public of progress in one phase or another of the Nation's economic reconversion.

Speaking for production, John D. Small, Adminisrator of Civilian Production said in his MONTHLY REPORT for July, "The stop-and-go output of mateials and parts which has been obstructing volume nanufacturing has now been replaced by continuous, high level production. That means that industry is within sight of full production of finished goods if Industrial peace continues."

July gains were 56 percent over June in the output of automobiles and 58 percent in trucks. Sewing machines jumped 30 percent, electric ranges 24, and gains were substantial in the number of passenger tires, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and in such clothing items as men's shirts and women's hosiery. July's production of 6.6 million tons of steel ingots was the highest so far this year.

¶The largest over-all harvest in the history of the country is predicted in the September 1 crop estimate of the Department of Agriculture.

"An all-time record volume of crops continues in prospect," the Bureau of Agricultural Economics reported, "despite adverse growing conditions for late maturing crops in important areas during August.”

The over-all crop is expected to be 26 percent larger than the 1923–32 average and 2 percent above the previous peak attained in 1942.

Wheat will have a bumper crop of well over a billion bushels and while it was earlier feared that heavy rains, unseasonably cool nights and light frosts

in the main cornbelt might harm this grain, the damage was not serious, and the harvest will top all other years. The yield of 36.9 bushels per acre is also a record and is attributable to the higher yielding hybrid corn which comprises 65 percent of the corn planted this year.

The weather factors which threatened the cornbelt proved a boon to pastures and hay crops, the Bureau reported, increasing dairy products and meat potentials.

¶During the year August 1945 to August 1946 there has been a net increase of 6,660,000 male workers in the labor force. Most of the rise occurred during the current calendar year. The total number of employed-57,960,000-according to the August Bureau of the Census survey included 41,250,000 men and 16,710,000 women. The proportion of men employed-7 of every 10 workers-reflects to a great extent the large numbers of veterans entering the labor market since the end of the Japanese war a year ago. During this period more than 10 million servicemen have been discharged, bringing the total of World War II veterans returned to civilian life to about 13 million.

By contrast, the number of employed women dropped from 18,930,000 in August 1945 to a postwar low in February of 15,490,000. Since then their employment has moved back up to 16,710,000, representing an over-all reduction during the year of 2,220,000.

The rapid flow of veterans into the labor market more than offset the exodus of women. Thus the net employment increase for the year was shown as 4,440,000.

Up to August, the Census survey figures revealed 12,580,000 World War II veterans had been discharged. Of these, 10,120,000 were listed as employed and about 500,000 are in school or college under the GI Bill. Of the remainder, 840,000 veterans are included among the unemployed seeking employment, while 890,000 are listed as not presently looking for jobs. About 240,000 are described as retired or not now employable.

Commenting on these figures and their implications, the Director of the United States Employment Service, Robert C. Goodwin, said it is evident that a great many jobs must still be found for veterans.

In addition to finding jobs for those actually unemployed, jobs will have to be found for additional veterans who will be discharged in the coming months. Moreover, the factor of turn-over must not be forgotten. "It is nautral," Mr. Goodwin said, "that men who have been through the war sometimes find it difficult to adjust themselves to civilian employment. In many cases they took the first job they could get and now want and reasonably so-to find work more in line with their capabilities and experience." Then, too, there are the veterans who returned with disabilities and this group, especially, Mr. Goodwin said, "has top priority with the USES."

¶In response to a directive in the President's Reorganization Plan No. 2, an Office of Federal-State Relations has been set up as a staff office of the Federal Security Agency, with George E. Bigge, Director of Federal-State Relations, in charge.

It will be the Director's responsibility to develop and recommend to the Administrator policies, methods, and procedures whereby the administrator can best effectuate Section 10 of the reorganization plan, which reads as follows:

"Coordination of grant-in-aid programs. In order to coordinate more fully the administration of grant-in-aid programs by officers and constituent units of the Federal Security Agency, the Federal Security Administrator shall establish, insofar as practicable, (a) uniform standards and procedures relating to fiscal, personnel, and other requirements common to two or more such programs, and (b) standards and procedures under which a State agency participating in more than one such program may submit a single plan of operation and be subject to a single Federal fiscal and administrative review of its operation."

¶The Veterans Administration has taken steps to meet the requirements of recent legislation (Public Law 679) which seeks to correct abuses that have developed under the training and education provisions of the GI Bill. It is estimated that it will take at least 3 months to cut or increase subsistence allowances to veterans in education and training necessitated by the amended law.

As a first step VA has ordered an immediate survey of all veterans enrolled in on-the-job training to determine whether their courses meet the minimum standards set by the legislation, or whether they qualify as apprentice training. If such a determination can not immediately be reached, closer study will follow.

If the training establishment was already approved before the new law was signed August 8, the veteran will be allowed to continue until the State reaffirms or withdraws its approval or until the VA regional office officially determines that the course does not meet the criteria set by Congress.

The VA has told all States that it hopes their approving agencies will reapprove or disapprove training establishments by January 1 on the basis of the new criteria. If a course is finally disapproved, veterans enrolled in it will cease to receive subsistence allowances and no new veterans will be permitted to enroll. Meanwhile, those already enrolled in on-thejob training courses are not to be disturbed while their status is being studied.

The criteria and standards for other on-the-job training, except for the limitation on combined earnings and subsistence allowance, do not apply to apprentice courses.

The recent legislation put a limitation on subsistence allowances for veterans enrolled under the GI Bill by stating that in no event shall the rate of such earnings plus subsistence exceed $175 per month for a veteran without a dependent or $200 per month if he has a dependent or dependents. The limitation applies to veterans whether they are earning money outside while going to school or earning wages in apprentice or other on-the-job training.

Plans for handling the limitation on subsistence allowances take into consideration those who already are in training or in school and those who are going to enroll later. Veterans who have received August 31 checks already have received notice to report their August, September, and October earnings to VA by November 5. Any necessary adjustments in the subsistence allowances of veterans already in training will be made on the basis of these reports.

USES activities at a glance, July 1946

Slogan
For the Year

By ROBERT C. GOODWIN

Director, U. S. Employment Service

THE CONGRESS of the United States demonstrated its understanding of the problems of handicapped job seekers when it passed unanimously an act establishing the first full week of October of each year as National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week. This legislation reflected the Nation-wide support back of the principle that "it's good business to hire the handicapped."

În setting aside one particular week during which public attention could be focused on facts regarding employment of the handicapped, Congress did not intend that the Nation's efforts on their behalf should be limited to only 1 week. On the contrary, the fight for parity in employment for the handicapped is a 52-week job, with 1 week set aside to emphasize its imperative nature.

Recognizing this need for gaining employer cooperation, the Veterans Employment Service will, in the near future, place additional employees on its field. staff. These new field assistants will be responsible for developing job opportunities for veterans. Care will be exercised to see that these new employees have a complete understanding of the disabled veterans program, and that a considerable portion of their time will be devoted exclusively to securing jobs and training opportunities for disabled veterans.

USES Played Lead

During the first observance of National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week in 1945, the USES played a leading role. It prepared and distributed informational and promotional materials, including leaflets, wall charts, pamphlets, draft press releases, radio scripts, and other material, and sent suggestions for planning State and local programs to field offices throughout the country.

Well in advance of the Week's observance, governors and mayors had issued proclamations similar to the President's proclamation calling for observance of the Week. News copy was prepared and released in abundance. Radio programs were arranged. Interested organizations had been contacted and were cooperating fully with the efforts of the USES.

The immediate effect of the 1945 observance of National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week was a sharp rise in the number of placements of handicapped workers. Total placements reached 18,700 during October 1945, a 25-percent gain over the 15,000 placements of disabled applicants during September 1945. This increase was particularly noteworthy because, despite less favorable labor market conditions

prevailing after VJ-day, it reversed a steadily declining trend of the previous 13 months.

Of the 18,700 handicapped placements, 11,400 were for disabled veterans. This placement record represented a 30-percent increase over the 8,800 disabled veterans placed during September 1945.

Congratulating the employees of the USES for the successful campaign it had conducted, the Secretary of Labor wrote:

Please convey to all employees of the United States Employment Service my very sincere appreciation for the excellent public service rendered by them during National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week, October 7 to 13, 1945.

Again this year the USES assumes leadership in public education on the employment of the handicapped. Unlike most other applicants with problems that retard vocational adjustment, the handicapped are at a disadvantage largely because employers and the public lack the understanding that they have the ability to perform successfully in jobs for which they have been properly selected. Thus, it often happens that it is the employer, rather than the applicant, who needs counsel. In its informational activities for the handicapped, the USES therefore strives to correct misconceptions and to emphasize certain major facts relating to employment of the handicapped.

Perfection is Non-Existent

Job orders placed with USES frequently carry specifications requiring physical perfection. Such specifications are a throw-back to the early development of management theories on personnel administration. Disabilities, being easy to detect compared with aptitudes, abilities, and other worker characteristics, were a primary reason for rejecting applicants. It was argued that quite obviously "three-quarters of a man" on a job acould not do the work of a "whole man." The USES has proved, through its careful analyses of the physical requirements of different occupations, that no job requires the "whole" worker. A given job may only require three-quarters of a man's capacities. This being true, there is no reason why a handicapped person cannot be as successful on that job as a "whole” man would be. It is this basic fact that the USES is stressing in its public education activities.

Another popular misconception is that the "physically perfect" worker is the only one who can do a job. The fact is the physically perfect worker does not exist. The USES must therefore convince employers that physical hiring specifications must be geared to individual job requirements.

Another major purpose of the USES public education program with reference to handicapped workers is to refute the idea that those who are disabled can do only restricted types of work. Handicapped people encounter this obstacle to employment at every turn. Even during the wartime labor shortage, the USES had a difficult time in placing the handicapped who were qualified for many jobs.

People once assumed that all a blind man could do

was to make brooms or baskets and some still hold to that opinion. Others think that a deaf person who does not have the ability to speak is below average mentally, or that a person who has an occasional attack of epilepsy should be in a hospital.

The purpose of the USES has been to demonstrate that these misconceptions have no basis in fact.

Each person, handicapped or not, has skills, abilities, interests, personality traits, and training which differ from those of other persons. Each has certain individual physical capabilities. Likewise, job requirements call for different physical activities. A watch repairman must be able to do fine accurate work with his hands. A drop forge operator in a steel mill must be able to lift heavy sheets of metal and must be able to work under hot and noisy conditions.

USES Keeps an Eye on Them

The USES has been a close observer of the performance of handicapped in jobs. It has found that these workers can, and in fact are, successfully employed in almost every type of occupation. A comparison of 675,000 placements of handicapped workers with placements of 23,000,000 nonhandicapped workers proves this to be true. The figures show that the handicapped were placed in professional and managerial jobs in a proportion of 1.8 percent, compared with 1.2 percent for the nonhandicapped; in clerical and sales jobs at a ratio of 9.3 percent to 9.3 percent for the able-bodied; in service occupations, 12.9 percent as against 11.8 percent for nonhandicapped. In the skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled jobs, the proportion of handicapped was 76.0 percent as compared with 77.7 percent for the able-bodied.

In addition to presenting facts concerning the occupational distribution of the handicapped, the USES uses the medium of public education to disseminate information regarding the work record of the disabled. Until fairly recently most studies of the production factors of handicapped workers were based on opinion polls. However, the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (Industrial Hazards Division) in cooperation with the Veterans' Administration has just completed the first portion of a careful field analysis of industrial employment of the handicapped.

In studying 3,895 handicapped workers as compared with 6,295 nonhandicapped in 47 industrial plants, the Industrial Hazards Division found that the average number of nondisabling work injuries per 1 million working hours was just about the same for both groups. These injuries merely required first aid. The handicapped had 8.3 disabling injuries per 1 million hours of work and the nonhandicapped had 11.8 such injuries for each 1 million hours. Both groups lost the same amount of time as a result of these injuriesone-tenth of their time scheduled to work. A part of this same study showed that in five plants with proper placement programs the handicapped had even fewer work injuries as compared with their fellow-workers. Considering the per-hour efficiency rate of nonhandicapped workers as 100.0 percent, the Bureau of

Labor Statistics found that handicapped employees produced at an hourly rate of 102.0 percent. The efficiency rate of the handicapped was even higher in those plants with proper placement programs. In some plants without such a program, the reverse was

true.

In a study regarding absences, it was found that the 3,997 handicapped lost, on a per-worker average, 38 days out of each 1,000 scheduled work days as compared with the same per-worker average of 38 days lost through absences of the 6,441 nonhandicapped workers with whom they were matched. An earlier portion of the study showed that only 40 out of every 1,000 handicapped workers quit their jobs compared with 102 out of every 1,000 able-bodied. Thus the separation rate (quits only) of the able-bodied was more than double that for the handicapped.

This study thus demonstrates that handicapped workers who have been properly placed in jobs suitable to their physical abilities do as well, and frequently better, than so-called "normal" workers. It shows that the handicapped are efficient, produce well, are not absent more frequently, are not injured more frequently, and that they stay at their jobs. It emphasizes that proper placement is the key to better production. It demonstrates that it's good business to hire the handicapped.

To drive these and other facts home and to point out the responsibilities of employers and the community as a whole to the handicapped are the purposes behind National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week and similar promotional efforts. A potential worker who does not have a job is a drain on the community. A worker who has the opportunity to earn his own way is a productive and contributing member of society. The handicapped can be assets rather than liabilities. It's good business to hire the handicapped-good business for everyone.

EXPLODING

Insuring the
Disabled Worker

By J. DEWEY DORSETT

General Manager, Association of
Casualty and Surety Executives

FRANKLY, we are worried about complaints from various sections of the country that employers are not hiring the physically impaired because they say that insurance companies forbid them to do so, or because they believe that they will be charged higher workmen's compensation insurance rates. Neither of these beliefs could be farther from the truth or more dangerous to the welfare of the disabled. As long as employers have any notions that a disabled worker is apt to cause expense or difficulty, it will be difficult to get a widespread acceptance of these workers by industry.

Here is the plain truth: Workmen's compensation insurance rates are not higher when physically impaired people are employed. The Association of Casualty and Surety Executives, representing 66 leading capital stock insurance companies, has gone on record with a declaration of attitude to inform employers throughout the Nation that insurance companies are not opposed to the employment of the handicapped and that their employment will not affect compensation insurance rates.

A workmen's compensation insurance policy says nothing whatever, implied or direct, about the physical condition of persons an insured employer may hire.

Without attempting to go into all of the ramifications of rating formulae, workmen's compensation insurance rates are based on claim severity and claim frequency-in other words, the cost of claims and the number of claims presented from year to year. Neither directly nor indirectly is there anything in the rating formulae or schedules which says that an employer shall be rated upward or downward because he does not employ disabled persons.

This statement is important, because the association's member companies underwrite a large percentage of the Nation's workmen's compensation insurance.

However, we in the business of casualty insurance believe that a statement of attitude is not enough. It certainly is not sufficient recognition of the debt we owe our soldiers, sailors, and marines—a debt that is equally owed by every American and every American business.

We can never fully repay these men. But we strive to meet our obligation in two ways. First, we are setting an example of leadership for other businesses and industries by employing and rehiring as many discharged servicemen as we can. Second, we are

assisting other employers to give jobs to former fighting men, especially the handicapped. The physically handicapped may be impaired in bodywe must make sure that they are not impaired in spirit. We can only do this by helping them to a place in society where they can be self-respecting and self-reliant, on an equal footing with their neighbors.

Many examples could be cited of disabled veterans who are building successful careers in insurance, as claim adjusters, safety engineers, statisticians, producers, and other jobs.

To state our attitude, then to set an example as an employer of the impaired, are constructive and beneficial measures to the welfare of the disabled. But we had to go further. The Association of Casualty and Surety Executives devised a way to show the employer how he can employ handicapped persons productively and safely. This was accomplished through the agencies of the association-sponsored Center for Safety Education at New York University and the association's accident-prevention division, the National Conservation Bureau. For many months experts of the Center for Safety Education were engaged in a most thoroughgoing research on the employment of the handicapped. These experts put themselves in the shoes of the employer. They talked with personnel managers. They examined training methods. They interviewed handicapped workers on the job and watched them at work. They checked plant records. The conclusions were heartening.

Success Depends on Placement

The properly placed and I emphasize "properly placed"-handicapped worker, on the average, we found was not a liability to his employer. He was an asset. He is not only as efficient and productive as the so-called normal worker-he is often more productive. He is as conscientious as the able-bodied, absent less often from work, and has a better record for reliability. He is not so apt to go looking for a new job. His morale, on the whole, is high. Surprisingly enough, the handicapped worker frequently proves to have an excellent influence on the other workers around him.

These results and the recommended program for employing the impaired that was developed as a consequence, were published as a booklet, THE PHYSICALLY IMPAIRED A GUIDEBOOK TO THEIR EMPLOYMENT, familiarly known as the GUIDEBOOK, and distributed free to more than 250,000 rehabilitation specialists, hospitals, colleges, guidance centers, and employers. To be certain that we have done the utmost in preparation of material to assist employers in hiring the impaired, we are conducting a survey of a selected group of those employers who have received copies of the GUIDEBOOK to determine how we can improve our recommended program. We expect to announce our results shortly.