CHAPTER VI
GENERAL SUMMARY

HE five-day week work schedule is not, as is frequently
assumed, a novelty of the last few years. The earliest
instance of its use noted in this study occurred in 1908,
and in this case the short weekly work arrangement has been
maintained continuously for twenty years. Five of the 270
companies herein reported were found to be operating on a
regular five-day schedule which had been introduced prior to
1914. The greatest progress in the movement for the shorter
work week, however, has been made since 1923, as evidenced
by the fact that 719, of the companies reporting the date of
introduction of the five-day week had adopted this schedule
between 1923 and 1928.
The total number of wage earners employed under a
permanent five-day schedule is not definitely known. However,
 data published by the American Federation of Labor in
November, 1928, indicate that 164,479 of its members in
twenty trades were at that time on this schedule, and the
Conference Board’s study shows 270 manufacturing companies
 employing 216,921 persons on the basis of a five-day
work week. Allowing for a certain amount of duplication
and also for cases of five-day operation that were not discovered
 in either study, it would seem safe to estimate that
about 400,000 persons were working on a five-day weekly
basis at the close of 1928. This number for 1928 was substantially
 exceeded with the granting of the five-day week to
large groups of building trades workers in August, 1929.
Yet, in spite of the fact that the five-day week has been
adopted more widely than is perhaps generally realized, it
still applies to only a relatively small proportion of the industrial
 working population. The total number of wage earners
employed by the 270 companies reported in this study to be
operating on a permanent five-day schedule constituted only
about 2.6%, of the industrial wage earners in this country,
and 809 of this number were employed by the Ford Motor
Company. Consequently, while the growth in recent years
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