3 So

EMPLOYMENT  PSYCHOLOGY

affairs.  Unemployment  or  a  constant  change  of  employment ­
  is  the  unhealthy  or  abnormal  state  of  affairs.  As
such,  it  requires  special  treatment,  just  as  physical  illness
requires  special  treatment.  Now,  whether  the  cases  of
unemployment  or  changing  employment  are  due  to  the
individual  or  to  industry,  it  is  the  task  of  employment
psychology  to  apply  the  necessary  corrective  treatment,
just  as  it  is  the  task  of  medicine  to  restore  to  health  the
individual  who  is  ill.  In  so  far  as  employment  psychology
duplicates  in  the  field  of  employment  what  medicine  does
in  the  field  of  health,  it  contributes  to  the  welfare  both
of  the  individual  and  of  industry.
In  order,  however,  to  achieve  a  still  truer  perspective
of  the  place  of  employment  psychology  with  reference  to
labor  and  industry,  it  is  necessary  to  go  still  deeper  into
the  problem  of  labor  turnover.  To  begin  with,  employment ­
  psychology  is  not  the  only  road  to  steady  employment, ­
  any  more  than  medicine  is  the  only  road  to  health.
Just  as  good  health  is  dependent  upon  healthful  recreation, ­
  health-giving  food,  proper  exercise,  and  an  absorbing
trade  or  profession,  so  steady  employment  is  dependent
upon  other  factors,  more  fundamental  than  a  temporary
correction.  Steady  employment  is  essentially  dependent
upon  the  conditions  of  industry.  It  is  dependent  upon  the
degree  and  quality  of  physical  health,  recreation,  family
life,  social  standing,  and  the  advancement  which  the
worker  is  able  to  achieve.  But  above  all,  it  is  dependent
upon  education.  The  one  most  universal  and  powerful
factor  in  reducing  labor  turnover  and  in  maintaining  a
healthy  state  of  employment  is  education.  Education
is  the  most  stabilizing  influence  known  to  man.  This  is
true  not  only  in  so  far  as  it  affects  labor  turnover,  but  in
its  effects  upon  the  turnover  of  social  institutions,  indus-