The returning veteran who meets Absolute Right all the requirements of the Selective Training and Service Act for reemployment in his former job has an absolute right of reinstatement in his former position or in a substantially similar position, according to a recent statement issued by National Headquarters of the Selective Service System.

The statement interprets the Selective Service Act as restoring the veteran to his old job, if he meets the conditions of the act, rather than merely restoration of his "job rights" in accordance with a system of seniority "or other system of relative employee status existing in the employer's business."

The statement reiterates the position of Selective Service that the only conditions upon the veteran's right to reinstatement are those specifically enumerated in the Act, as follows:

1. That the veteran receive a certificate of satisfactory service.

2. That he still be qualified to perform the duties of his position.

3. That he make timely application for reinstate

for farming. Hazards as well as opportunities are pointed out clearly. Unless veterans have adequate experience and financial resources they will be cautioned to move slowly in making decisions. Some veterans are advised to become tenants or hired men on farms until they get money and experience enough to "make a go" of farming. Veterans Advisory Committees have been set up in most counties, with county agents serving as liaison between veterans and committees.

The National

Public Recreation Offers Jobs Recreation Asso

ciation believes veterans will make good recreation experts. It has launched a program with a two-fold purpose: to attract veterans to the recreation field, and to interest communities in their employment. Most sizable communities have a recreation service which functions on a community-wide basis for children, youth, and adults in games and sports, music, dramatics, arts and crafts, social and folk games, and other miscellaneous out-of-door recreations. Positions range from Directors of centers and Specialists to Supervisors and the top job of Superintendent of Recreation. Any veteran interested may be referred by a local USES office to the Office of Public Recreation or Park Department in his community, or to the National Recreation Association, 315 Fourth Avenue, New York 10, N. Y., which has a noncharge service to assist qualified veterans to find a place in the recreation field.

A recent analysis

Apprentice Training Popular of 100 reports

on veterans employed as apprentices indicated that 53 percent were indentured in the metal trades, 40 percent in the construction industry, and 7 percent in other apprenticeable occupations. The vast majority, 97 percent, had no overseas experience, and 75 percent served less than 2 years in the armed forces. Twice as many qualified for the training under Public Law 16 as under Public Law 346. One-fourth of the apprentices did not come under either law. Almost half (45 percent) were referred to their present jobs as apprentices by the United States Em

I ployment Service or the Veterans Administration, 13 percent obtained the job on their own direct applications, 20 percent were helped by ApprenticeTraining Service, and 22 percent were referred by a union local or other source.

Field reports reaching headquarters include more and more items on veterans in apprenticeship-problems, accomplishments, and human interest stories. So rapidly are programs being set up that ATS is taxed to keep up with requests for its help in evaluating them.

Veterans are showing an interest Trade Careers in trade careers. In the Jacksonville, Fla., area, there are five veterans to one nonveteran enrolled in the automotive mechanics program. One large airplane manufacturing corporation in California reported one-fourth of its apprentices were veterans. The Chicago area showed a steady increase in veteran apprentices in the first 3 months of this year, with 100 apprenticed in the sheet metal industry, 74 in the painting trade, and 85 who started training to become plumbers. So widespread is the interest among servicemen that recently a group of 1,800 patients at the Bruns General Hospital in Santa Fe, N. Mex., were given answers to their questions on apprentice training by means of a loudspeaker system installed in the various wards and rooms.

More than 17,000 veteran Jobs With Uncle Sam placements were made in the Federal Civil Service during February. This represented an increase of more than 1,300 placements over January and the highest monthly veteranplacement total to date. The War Department continued to lead in the largest number of veteran placements for the month (7,109), the Navy Department was next (6,299), and considerable numbers were placed in the Post Office Department, the Veterans Administration, the Treasury, and other Departments. By States, California led with 2,609; New York followed with 1,709; Virginia was next, with 1,161. Total veteran placements during 1944 was 142,438, an average of 11,870 a month.

urged to take advantage of inter-regional recruitment facilities offered by the USES, thereby avoiding traveling to find work, frequently in vain. Reports reaching the Veterans Employment Service of the USES recently showed that veterans attracted by "Help Wanted" advertisements in other localities have discovered that the work is temporary or part time. In some cases, too, housing is not available, and veterans must then leave their families behind. In order to inform veterans of these USES facilities, WMC recently made a public statement which said:

357,120 in 1943, and this figure was boosted to 806,139 in 1944.

These figures, it is pointed out, include veterans of all wars, but in February of 1944, a separate statistical break-down was started by the Reports and Analysis Service of WMC in order to obtain a monthby-month picture of the number of placements being made for servicemen of the present war.

From February 1944 through March 1945, a total of 775,495 placements were made for veterans of this war by local USES offices. Since August 1944, approximately 88,900 of these placements were for servicemen with disabilities.

A number of improvements have been made in the USES program for veterans during the last 3 years. These include job counseling, both at the Army's 22 separation centers and in local employment offices, and the "selective placement" technique adopted by USES interviewers to facilitate proper placement of disabled veterans.

In addition, much work is being done by interviewers and local Veterans Employment Representatives in interesting potential employers in the placement of veterans.

USES personnel, who for years before the war were active in working with handicapped civilians, are now being called upon by employers to assist in developing programs within their plants for the employment of disabled veterans.

Local offices of USES are keeping records as to the occupational groups that have absorbed numbers of veteran workers. From October through December 1943, placements for veterans were made in the following groups:

Professional and managerial, 2,078; clerical and sales, 6,982; service, 9,832; skilled, 21,254; semi

(Continued from p. 2)

amount and duration of benefits, something that can be accomplished only by amending the Social Security Act so as to induce State laws to provide more adequately for anyone who is unemployed.

2. Extend, during the emergency reconversion period, the coverage of unemployment compensation to include Federal employees, martime workers, and other workers not now insured, with such benefits financed by the Federal Government during the emergency, but administered by the States.

3. Provide, through supplementary Federal emergency benefit payments, minimum standards for the weekly rate and duration of benefits. Maximum benefits would be $25 per week for 26 weeks.

¶ Because of the increase in the number of inquiries made at local offices of the United States Employment Service about civilian employment opportunities in foreign countries, USES interviewers have been supplied with copies of a new foreign job guide. The booklet, entitled GUIDE TO FOREIGN EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES, carries a list of Federal agencies and private companies recruiting workers for jobs in Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, South America, Europe, China, Africa, Arabia, and other countries. Also included is a list of the occupations for which USES is doing foreign recruiting at the request of these agencies and industrial firms, together with a description of the work in which the potential employers are engaged, skills required to fill specific jobs, working conditions, housing facilities available, and other pertinent data in which the applicant would be interested.

Copies of the guide have also been furnished to USES counselors stationed at the Army's separation centers to inform discharged veterans of foreign job openings. A number of local USES offices have reported that many veterans are expressing interest in returning to permanent employment overseas that will utilize their highest skills.

¶ A National Advisory Committee to study and advise on techniques of measuring results of training used by industries and training agencies has been appointed by WMC. The committee will seek to correlate all available information concerning tech

skilled, 20,899; and unskilled and other, 61,189.

In the comparable period of October-December 1944, figures show placements as follows: professiona! and managerial, 4,048; clerical and sales, 16,178; service, 21,173; skilled, 37,477; semiskilled, 46,237; and unskilled and other, 118,191.

During January and February of 1945, a total of 184,105 placements were made for veterans. Of this number, 146,286 involved veterans of the present war, approximately 24,100 of whom had suffered some type of disability.

niques of measuring training results in order to discover the most practical and effective means of establishing the benefits of organized training in industrial plants. A further aim is to utilize the worthwhile results of training not only during the war with Japan but during the reconversion and post-war periods.

The committee's study is sponsored by training agencies that comprise the National Training Council of the WMC Bureau of Training.

¶ Three of every four women workers in the Detroit area plan to continue working after victory over Japan; 85 percent of the women in that area who want jobs must earn their living and often support others. These facts are revealed by a Women's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor, survey of employed women in the Detroit area during 1944.

According to the study, 100,000 more women in the Detroit area will want jobs after the war than were employed there in 1940; this would mean a total of 312,000 women in the area's labor market when demobilization is completed. The proportion of women who want jobs after the war is decidedly higher among women who were employed before Pearl Harbor than among those who became employed after. While a total of 58,000 women expect to withdraw from the Detroit labor market when the war is over, more than four-fifths of the former school girls, or 61,000, expect to work; three-fifths, or 64,000, of the housewives who entered the labor market during the war plan to continue working. Well over half the 31,000 in-migrant women workers intend to leave the area and work elsewhere. Women's employment in Detroit war-manufacturing jobs increased 500 percent during the war, rising from 31,000 to 197,000.

WMC has lost one of its old employees, gained another. Leo R. Werts, who was Assistant Executive Director for Field Service, left the Commission in June to assume duties in Germany, to work with the Control Council manpower staff in the American Sector. Louis Levine is back with the Commission at his old stand, as Chief of the Reports and Analysis Service. As Lieutenant Levine, he was on duty with the Navy in the headquarters of the Selective Service System.

✩U. S, GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1945-649231

be retained where necessary to: (1) protect war production; (2) promote the smooth flow of materials into civilian production; (3) give small business equality of opportunity in the race for civilian markets; and (4) to ward off inflation.

Under a subhead "Manpower in Reconversion," the report discusses the effect of early cut-backs and reconversion on employment:

As the result of cutbacks in munitions schedules, 500,000 workers have been released from war plants in the 3 months ended May 31, and the rate of lay-offs is accelerating. The impact has been uneven, and in such war production areas as Detroit, Buffalo, and San Francisco, workers have lost jobs faster than they have been able to find them.

However, declines in munitions employment have not been accompanied by increases in total unemployment. U. C. claims have just begun to increase noticeably. During the war many industries have been starved for workers laundries, restaurants, bus lines, railroads, public utilities, retail trade and so on, and they have been absorbing workers. True, jobs offered are not always of the same character or at the same rate of pay as munitions work. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that at the moment the laid-off munitions worker does not lack, as a general rule, job opportunities.

Unquestionably, however, in the near future decreases in munitions employment will be accompanied by increases in unemployment. The immediate absorptive capacity of labor-starved industries is limited. The reconversion of industry will tend to lag behind the cutbacks in munitions production, due to the time involved in rearranging plants for peacetime operations. And those jobs which open up may not be in the right locality or of the right type or rate of pay for the laid-off workers.

Inevitably, there will be some distressed areas. Six month from now the War Manpower Commission estimates that 10 communities will suffer from acute unemployment, largely because reconversion opportunities for closed-down plants in these communities are few. The areas are camparatively small, however, involving less than 1 percent of the industrial population. (Specific measures to meet this situation are planned.) Generally speaking, however, the supply-demand position in labor will continue in tight balance as civilian production resumes on an expanding scale. The WMC anticipates that 6 months from now some 29 areas, involving 6 percent of the industrial population, will be short workers for war production.

The report also refers to a specific job for the United States Employment Service--the location of jobs for displaced war workers and returning veterans. It states:

One of the most important Government functions during this period (of reconversion)—when the demand for labor will be high but uneven-will be to provide jobseekers with up-to-date information on what kind of help is needed and where. This is primarily a task for the USES. During the war the USES recruited more than 2 million persons for war jobs away from their home towns. Reconversion will bring a reversal of that process. Through its 1,500 offices, the USES has built up Nationwide contacts with employers, labor unions, and individual workers. Employers in tight labor markets will be advised where labor is available; similarly workers in distress areas will be told where out-of-town jobs still can be found. And, of course, the USES will continue intra-area job_placement.

The success of these operations, the report points out, will depend largely on "adequate funds and efficient administration."

To protect workers from unemployment and other hazards, the WMR Director recommends improvement in social security programs in line with President Truman's message of May 26 (see "At Press

Time," MANPOWER REVIEW, July 1945). "I cannot emphasize too strongly," the Director said, "that if we are to meet the human needs of reconversion the Congress must make necessary provisions. An adequate unemployment compensation law is our number one legislative requirement for reconversion."

The report also urges broadening of the old-age and survivors' insurance law, the provision of sickness and disability benefits and medical care, the institution of more adequate grants-in-aid to the States for hospitals and health centers, and better educational opportunities. These things are seen as vital not merely as a humanitarian but as an economic policy. "Adequate protection against the major hazards of modern society is a necessary factor in maintaining mass purchasing power, which in turn is the basis of full employment."

Finally, the report outlines "What VJ-Day means": Just as the Federal war agencies were prepared for VÉ-Day, so must they also be prepared for VJ-Day. They must have on tap a variety of plans for a variety of contingencies particularly they must have plans for an early defeat of Japan as well as a late one.

The timing makes a great difference. Today 45 percent of American energies are concentrated on war and warsupporting activities; a year from now, as military needs gradually decline, only about 30 percent will be required. Similiarly, employment in munitions production will taper off from about 8.6 million workers to less than 6 million. And whereas today the automobile, refrigerator, electrical equipment, and other consumer durable goods industries are only starting to reconvert, a year from now the reconversion process will have been well advanced, civilian production will be accelerating rapidly, and manufacturers will be prepared to take on workers. At the same time, many workers discharged from war plants will have found jobs. Hence the later VJ-Day comes, the fewer war workers will have to be absorbed, the smoother will be the transition, and the shorter the lag between cut-back disemployment and reconversion reemployment. Conversely, the shorter the war, the greater will be the VJ-Day dislocations.

¶ Because of the gradual reconversion occurring simultaneously with war production. inter-regional recruitment facilities of USES offices have been made available to employers engaged in certain civilian production, as well as those engaged in war production.

Local USES offices in areas where the supply of labor is in excess of local employer needs will receive orders for workers from employers whose needs cannot be met in their own localities. By such an arrangement, surplus labor will be more quickly reemployed and the labor requirements of employers more quickly met.

During the 18 months preceding VE-Day, there was a definite and deliberate tendency to discourage inter-office recruitment for other than war production. This was advisable because of the shortage of workers generally and the necessity for allocating such workers as could be made available to employers with the most urgent war needs.

It appears now that war production cut-backs and other changes in the national economy naturally to be expected between VE-and VJ-Day will make for a loosened labor market. Surplus and even distressed areas will probably develop and unemployed workers (Continued on p. 12)