UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 53 
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of wage earners employed by our factories increased 40 per cent from 1899 to 
1909; ‘that is, 1,903,000 more wage earners were taken on to bring about this 
59 per cent increase in production.* Similarly in the decade from 1909 to 1919, 
production increased 85 per cent and employment increased 38 per cent. Increased 
production was made possible by employing 2,481,000 more wage earners. This 
meant jobs for nearly two and a half million more men and women. 
Now in the decade from 1919 to 1929 developments took an entirely different 
turn. Production increased as before, so that our plants were turning out 42 per 
cent more in 1929 than in 1919. But this increase was made possible without 
any increase in the number of wage earners employed. Employment actually 
decreased 7 per cent from 1919 to 1929. Forty-two per cent more goods were 
produced with 585,000 fewer workers. This general increase was made possible 
by the introduction of new machinery and modern methods of manufacture. 
Increasing production instead of creating more work, actually took away 585,000 
jobs. 
The producing power of the average wage earner increased 11 per cent in the 
20 years from 1899 to 1919; but in the short space of 10 years from 1919 to 1929 
(half as long) it increased 53 per cent.’ 
These great changes have so lithited the number of wage earners needed in our 
manufacturing industries that men and women are forced to walk the streets, 
looking for work. To be sure some jobs are created in the service industries, 
where employment has been increasing in the last decade, but these are not nearly 
enough to make up for the change in manufacturing. 
Although technological unemployment is no new story, the rate at which 
technical progress has come in the past 25 years makes displacement of workers 
a very different problem. The rapidity and the scope of scientific progress has 
made technical procedure practically fluid. The period of recent economic pros- 
perity made it possible for industries to install the newest machinery and the 
Newest processes without hesitation. Abundance of capital facilitated the 
development of new industries. 
These new industries have helped to absorb workers released by older indus- 
tries. But some of the new industries, particularly automobiles, are most un~ 
stable and have by far the highest fluctuation in pay rolls of all industries. 
During June of 1929 industrial production in the United States reached a new 
record peak. Even this stupendous output failed to supply employment to all 
seeking work. The records of the American Federation of Labor showed 9 per 
tent unemployment among trade-union workers during that period of record 
breaking production. In the summer of 1927 the Federation had been sensitive 
to recurring reports of unemployment from all parts of the country and instituted 
a system of monthly reports from the local unions in 24 industrial centers. The 
summary of these records is an interesting document. We are satisfied that the 
sustained high rate reflects among other forces unemployment due to mechaniza- 
tion of industry. 
Nearly one-third of the wage earners in the United States depend on manufac- 
turing industries for their jobs. Our wage earner population is increasing, while 
jobs in manufacturing industry decrease. Since 1919, the normal increase in 
population has brought over five and a half million more persons who want work 
as wage earners, while jobs in manufacturing have decreased by 585.000. Thus 
we need more than six million new jobs. . . 
The “newer” industries, such as gasoline stations and automobile repair shops, 
barber shops and beauty parlors, hotels and restaurants, have given work to some 
of this army of job seekers, for employment has been increasing in these lines: 
Professional work has also been increasing; there are more teachers, doctors, 
dentists, oculists. But all these new industries put together have not been nearly 
enough to take care of the six million who want work. A recent study of 754 
persons laid off from manufacturing plants show that only 15 per cent were able 
to find work in these ‘‘newer’ industries. . . 
Also there is the problem of job adjustment. For a man laid off in a steel mill 
where new machinery has just been installed, can not go tomorrow and take up 
work as a barber, and he certainly is not prepared for the professions. Even in 
hotel and restaurant work and in gasoline stations, where less training is required, 
there are new skills to be learned, and men with experience are likely to have 
preference. 
The problem facing these workers who are laid off from their job is well illus- 
trated by the above mentioned study, covering 754 wage earners laid off from 
+ Figures from census Monograph, ‘“ The Growth of Manufactures, United States Bureau of Census.” 
5 Figures from Federal Reserve Board, United States Census of Manufactures.