Published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, under authority of Public Resolution No. 57, approved May 11, 1922 (42 Stat. 541), as amended by section 307, Public Act 212, 72d Congress, approved June 30, 1982. For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. Price 30 cents a copy. Subscription price per year in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, $3.50, other countries, $4.75. This publication approved by the Director Bureau of the Budget. Labor in depression and recovery, 1929 to 1937... FOR NOVEMBER 1937 This Issue in Brief Labor in Depression and Recovery. IN MANUFACTURING and steam railroads and 13 other nonmanufacturing industries combined, employment in July 1932 was 36 percent below the 1929 average of 18,801,000, and in July 1937, 11 percent lower. In these large, varied, and substantially representative groups of industries, weekly pay rolls and per-capita weekly earnings also remained below the 1929 level, but per-capita weekly earnings, when measured in terms of cost of living, rose by July 1937 somewhat above the 1929 level. In manufacturing and the extracting of minerals, the employment in 1936 of the same proportion of the population as in 1929, at the average output per worker prevailing in 1936, would have resulted in a volume of production in these industries about 23 percent greater than the actual production. The study containing these and related statistics considers also the significance of various economic factors affecting the status of labor. Page 1045. Bituminous-Coal Mining Wages, 1936. WAGE EARNERS in the bituminouscoal mining industry worked an average of 32.3 hours per week and earned an average of 77.3 cents per hour and $24.96 per week, in the latter part of 1936. Wide variations existed between States, Utah showing the .highest average hourly earnings (95.5 cents) and Alabama the lowest (54.3 cents). These figures are from the report of the Bureau's latest wage survey for the industry, made just before the Appalachian Agreement of 1937, which provided for a substantial increase in wage rates. Page 1082. Male and Female Job Seekers. ONE of the most striking facts developed in an analysis (p. 1093) of the records of the United States Employment Service is the difference in the movements of men and women on and off the office registers. The number of women seeking work fell by only 2.3 percent during the quarter April to July 1937, compared with a reduction in the male active file of 12.3 percent. This difference is partly due to the fact that the metal and transportationequipment industries, which are almost exclusively male domains, enjoyed a much greater expansion of activity than the food and textile industries, which employ a larger proportion of women. But even in such industries as textiles the reduction in the number of woman applicants was proportionately less than that of men. Increase in Union Wage Rates in Building Trades. THERE was an increase of 7 percent in the index of union hourly wage rates for the building trades between 1936 and 1937. The sustained and accelerated rise in hourly wage rates from the low point in 1933 resulted in a 1937 index almost 13 percent higher than that of 1933. A slight increase in hours in 1937, 0.4 percent, appears to be chiefly a result of the abandonment by local unions of sharethe-work plans as employment opportunities have increased. This is evidenced by the fact that most of the increases were from a 30-hour to a longer |