Two Shocks in Portland

A crew of 450 pollsters moved into the three Henry J. Kaiser-operated shipyards in the Portland (Ore.) area. In seven days, they sieved 81,881 workers through a series of questions designed to peg down their postwar plans, the first such big worker-by-worker poll in the U.S. Last week, Shipbuilder Kaiser, who footed the bill, the Portland Chamber of Commerce and the Maritime Commission, which helped poll, announced the statistical shocker: other than present employment, 86% of the workers have no postwar job in sight.

Of the two-thirds of the workers who have moved to Portland in the last three years, 25,960 intend to remain there, dark outlook or no. As their postwar project No. 1, they plan to plunk their savings into buying a house or land. To help provide jobs, Portland is already planning a grandiose $75,000,000 public works project. On this, proud Portlandians got another shock. Half the workers had never heard of the project.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.