More Jobs for More Workers

How many peacetime jobs will there be--and how soon? After eighteen months of diligent research the Committee for Economic Development's marketing committee this week came out with an answer. In a report titled "American Industry Looks Ahead," C.E.D. thought that there would be work for 53.5 million people in the first full year of production after reconversion problems are licked. That year, according to C.E.D.'s pre-atomic estimate, would be 1947.

Labor Force. C.E.D. began by counting noses of the potential postwar labor force. War had made many a strange distortion in labor statistics. Thus big, square-jawed T. G. MacGowan, chairman of C.E.D.'s marketing committee, had to weed from the present labor force of 51.3 million the younger workers who will go back to school, the women who will go back to housework, and the overaged slated (rather arbitrarily) for retirement.

The population increase which normally adds 500,000 people a year to the labor force was canceled out for one year by the grim estimate of 500,000 armed service casualties who will never return to peacetime work. Once these adjustments were made, MacGowan's staff set the 1947 labor force at 60 million--5.9 million more than in 1939 when 8.9 million were unemployed.

Production Needs. The next move was to measure the job outlook. To do this C.E.D. sent questionnaires to 1,564 manufacturers and manufacturers' trade associations. The question asked: how large a market do manufacturers conservatively prophesy for their postwar products? The answer: $80 billion of goods in 1947 (based on 1939 prices), an increase of 42% over 1939's $56.8 billion.

Automen and parts manufacturers looked for a 75.8% increase in sales over 1939. Some other rosy estimates: transportation equipment (except automobiles), up 74.3%; tobacco products, up 69.4%; chemicals, up 58.2%; rubber products, UP 47.3%; food products, up a happy 33.6%.

With these figures MacGowan's statistics-jugglers thought they had the key to job opportunities. Allowing for a 6% increase in man-hour productive efficiency since 1939, they reasoned that the manpower needed to produce 1947's manufactured goods will be 13.4 million--a 34% increase over the ten million on manufacturers' payrolls in 1939. By applying and revising 1939's ratio of industrial workers to workers in all other categories --i.e., agriculture, distribution, and service industries--they reached the figure of 53.5 million jobs.

Floating Surplus. That still left 6.5 million people with no jobs. But MacGowan & Co. guestimated that a deduction of 3.5 million could be made for those who will still be in the armed services. The three million remaining will be the "floating labor" force--not an alarming number considering the great segment of labor that is constantly, but usually temporarily, out of work due to job shifts or seasonal changes in employment demands.

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