Unemployment in the United States

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1828236179

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-226169

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Unemployment in the United States

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: United States, Government Printing Office

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: II, 193 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement by Miss Frances Perkins, industrial commissioner of the State of New York

Collection:: Economics Books

UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 67 acipal v the who r eCO- ng to vhich r the o the mum for a f the v two ne to made on of tion- e co- any the the the men rome ; one 1 has as0n nong nt— nent, not to a the the rgely now more what 0 get ‘man the * the their 1thlyv anu- care iness able 1011t the twelve months of the years. Both of these companies, the East- man Kodak Co. and the Bausch-Lomb Co. have told us their payrolls have not varied in the course of a year $300 in any given month in these periods of depression which we have gone through. That was corroborated by a men’s clothing company, high class tailors, in Style-Grade clothing. They had worked out a system and had given their people forty-eight weeks work in the year, and they had only three hundred people in their company, a paper company in New York State, in Troy. And there are many thrilling descriptions that tome to us from leading industrialists for the establishment of means to prevent unemployment in their own particular industries. In other words, capable management is taking the problem of seas- onal unemployment in hand in a scientific way, and with great good- will, and with appreciation of the fact that the settlement of that Problem is essential for the health of the whole of American industry. I think it is obvious to every one who has studied the situation over the many years in which we have data, that prosperity in America, in the face of the multitude types of improved machinery, that it depends more and more in extending the consumer market. If we are being able by mass production, to manufacture so many more cameras and high class overcoats and suits and shoes and stockings, then we must find a place to sell them. We must have an extending consumer market. The lowering of the cost of production on these mass-pro- duced goods makes it possible for poorer people to buy them and it brings into the consuming class of the public the wage earners of America. So you see the problem is to build up and keep up the Wage-earning consumer market, and maintain the American level in industry and in living. . Now, as I said, the industrialist himself will probably manage to Iron out the season curves in production and get rid of seasonal unem- ployment in industries by diversifying production and by securing advance orders and paying bonuses on advance orders. Procter & Gamble Co. give a reduction or a bonus to people who will order their soap on an annual basis, and so that they can have some basis for a stabilized production program. } These things will go a long way to getting rid of these seasonal unemployment periods; and in that way the Government can give a great deal of help to these people bv information collected in a national way. : As to the problem of technological unemployment the industries can do much toward mitigating technological unemployment by timing the introduction of new devices and machinery which save labor, with the object of seeing that they are introduced at the time when they are expanding. That is, they should be introduced when the industry is expanding. . . . Many employers are aware of that fact and will testify they have introduced their labor-saving machinery and devices in such a way as to take up the natural falling off in the number of employees, who leave their employment. oo _ In this attempt the Government should assist industry by supply- ing industry with information; with work that can be brought into play at the proper times to take up the slack in employment, the slack In technological employment. And, with the assistance which may come to an industry, where the worker is displaced through unemploy-

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