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N11. 4 -- 1441 OOCU M ( .' - ROO "I T H E WO R K S P R O G R A M Wnrks Progress Adm inistra ti on Fer Release to Newspape r~ Sunday, February 28 , 193? First Re po rt on Technolog i cal Study Nears CompleHon. The most comp rehensive study unrle rtaken in r ecent years r"f the effe c ts of changing ind.us tri al technology on the v olume of empliwment and unemployment is app roaching complet i on , Harry L. Hopkins , Works Prog ress Ad.rninistra t or, announced today. The fir s t repo rt of tne fi nd i ngs of t his s t udy is expected to be r eleased Nithin the next two months. The s tudy , a nationn.l WPA research p r ojec t whi:::h has been in p r og r e s s fourteen months, has su r veyed 650 manufacturing plants embracing mor e than a dozen industries and t ouching nearl y ever~, State in the country, according to Corringt0n Gill, Assis tant Administrator, con struct i on and. tran spo rta ti on. I t a lso inc ludes surveys of at;: ri cu.lture, mining , An u.nusu..<il fe ature of t he p r o,je c t is t hat its investigators a.ctually went into many indus tri a l centers and ob tai!1ed fir s t-hand case h is t ories of more than 22 , 000 wo r ke rs and former workers. Mr. Hopkins I announcement was accompan:i.ed by a p r ogress r epo rt su.rnrnarizing the first year's wor~ of the p roje ct, which is being direct ed by D~vid Weintraub, It is entitled, "Reemployment Oppo rtunities and Rec ent Change s in Indu strial ,ยท Techniques. 11 Because t he study delves so compr ehens ively int o t he causes and effe ct s nf the mechanization of industry, its findings are expected t o Digitized by Original from NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY - 2 - become a focal point in discussions of what the Government's plans must be with relation to the unemploy~d. "There is no question, 11 Mr. Hopkins said, 11 that changing industrial methods have an imprrtant effect on bnth the volume cf production and the volume of emplcyment. dozens of angles. This project is going int o the questi on from It is measuring the amount of work a man does under modern methods and comparing it with what he didin .previcus ye a rs. It is studying changes in kinds of machinery, raw materials, hours of work, occupations and ages of workers and the relation between actual output cf plants and their full production capacity. 11 This problem is infinitely complex. The project is attempting t o present a tremendrus fund of informatinn which can be used as the bas is for intelligent conclusi on s by Congress and by numerous Federal agencies which are attempting t o solve va rious phases r,f this riddle. 11 Here is an example r:,f what I mean: A manufacturer tells us that nine mules and no me n were displaced when he substituted electric trucks for mule teams for hauling materials around his plant. have rnly begun. We want to know whether this change At that point we jn method gave him a particular advantage in his industry so that he could take business away from his competitors, and thereby cau3e unemployment in either plants. We alsn want to know what effect this change fr om animal to manufactured power had on employment in the agricultural and electrical industries. We need to know what happened to the former mule drivers, who_ in this case were given other jobs around the .plant instead cf being fired. We want to know whether they earn mere or less money in their new jobs, and whether they were among the first to be laid off during a slack period. Digitized by Original from NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY No. 4 -- 1441 - 3 - "Not only Congress but many Government agencies, including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior and Labor, the Social Security Board and ourselves have great need of such informati on. "Here are only a few of the questions which need answering: age is a man useless to modern industry? At what What can be done about stranded popula- tions in areas from which industry has moved away? In what degree can changes in occupation result in jobs for the jobless, where is this possible and to what ,extent? 11 It is our hope that the findings of this project will be hel pful not only to public agencies but to the managements of the industries surveyed and to students of the country 1 s ec onomic problems." Digitized by Original from NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
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