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WEATHERING LAYOFFS IN A SMALL COMMUNITY CASE STUDIES OF DISPLACED POTTERY AND CARPET-MILL WORKERS •V- June 1966 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR W. Willard Wirtz, Secretary BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS Arthur M. Ross, Commissioner Bulletin No. 1516 WEATHERING LAYOFFS IN A SMALL COMMUNITY CASE STUDIES OF DISPLACED POTTERY AND CARPET-MILL WORKERS m i QSjj JUNE 1966 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR W. Willard Wirtz, Secretary BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS Arthur M. Ross, Commissioner For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U .S . Government Printing Office, W ashington, D.C., 2 0 4 0 2 - Price 45 cents P reface The two studies reported in this bulletin were sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. The first, covering the experience o f workers laid off between 1957 and 1962 by 13 potteries in an area centered in East Liverpool, Ohio, was conducted by Professor David Levinson of the Department of Economics of Ohio University. The other, covering workers displaced from a large carpet mill in the Northeast in 1960-62, was made by Professor N. Arnold Tolies of the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. Originally the studies were conceived as guides to the kinds of problems that might confront employees of plants and industries that are severely affected by import competition, which had been cited as a major cause of declining employment in each case. However, conclusive evidence showing import competition as a major cause of unemployment was not found in either study. But to whatever causes the particular layoffs might properly be assigned— and causes not related to imports were dis covered in each case, incidentally— the main emphasis was on the workers’ experience following layoff. It is this information which constitutes the material presented here. Striking parallels in circumstances suggest that the findings may illuminate some of the special problems surrounding large-scale layoffs by factories in smaller, less urbanized communities. In no area within the scope of either study did 1962 employment exceed 50,000, and in most instances it was less than half that amount. The local economy was generally dominated by manufacturing, of which the establishments in question had been important components. Unem ployment typically was far above the prevailing national rate. In short, finding a job in such an economic situation might challenge even highly qualified workers. Both groups in question, however, included unusually large propor tions of older workers, workers with little education, and workers with few skills that would be readily marketable outside the industry in which they had been employed. In addition, they were firmly tied to the com munity where they had been employed, by extensive home ownership and long residence. Thus, it was to be expected that many of the laid-off workers would have great difficulty finding new jobs. They did. In fact, their layoff appears to have left them isolated both geographically and economically from the generally prosperous American society, many dropping out of the job market entirely. A Case Study The Post-Layoff Experience of Displaced Carpet-Mill Workers by N. Arnold Tolies Report on a study by the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, under a grant from the U.S. Department o f Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. V Acknowledgments This study was greatly facilitated by the cooperation o f the American Carpet Institute, the management of the carpet mill which was selected, and the local of the Textile Workers Union of America which represented the workers involved in the layoff. The author is also indebted to the local office of the State Employment Service, and to leaders of the community where the mill was located. Special recognition is due Walter Hauck and Lewis Perl, who assisted the author professionally. Mr. Hauck, who was in 1963 a graduate student at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, supervised the field work, the coding of the schedules, and most of the machine tabulation, and also assisted in the preliminary analysis of the data. Mr. Perl, a graduate of the School, assisted the author during the summer of 1964 with some additional tabulations and final analysis of the data. Contents Page Summary _________________________________________________________________ 1 Background of the study_____________________________________________________ 2 Characteristics of the laid-off workers and the local economy--------------------------The area’s economy____________________________________________________ The workers’ characteristics____________________________________________ 3 3 3 Employment experience_____________________________________________________ Labor force status, April 1963___________________________________________ Employment and unemployment since layoff-------------------------------------------Time elapsed before reemployment__________________________________ Number and types of jobs obtained_________________________________ Work h istory ______________________________________________________ 5 6 7 7 9 10 Workers’ income after layoff-------------------------------------------------------------------------Current earnings position_______________________________________________ Wage levels on post-layoff jobs__________________________________________ Age and sex differentials_______________________________________________ Average income after layoff_____________________________________________ Unemployment benefits________________________________________________ 13 13 14 15 17 17 Workers’ adjustments to their post-layoff situation----------------------------------------Economic position prior to layoff________________________________________ Major adjustments to loss of wage income_______________________________ Social security benefits--------------------------------------------------------------------Wages of other family members_____________________________________ Disposal of assets----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Infrequently used methods of post-layoff adjustment--------------------------------- 18 18 19 19 20 20 21 Appendixes: A. Methodology_______________________________________________________ B. Worker Interview Schedule_________________________________________ 23 25 Tables: 1. Years of school completed by displaced carpet-mill workers, by sex, April 1963 survey------------------------------------------------------------------------2. Labor force status of displaced carpet-mill workers, by age and sex, April 1963 survey------------------------------------------------------------------------3. Success and length of search for substantial job by displaced carpetmill workers, by age and sex, April 1963 survey-------------------- ------4. Educational differences in success and length of search for substantial job by displaced carpet-mill workers, by sex, April 1963 survey_____ 5. Number of employers, kinds of jobs, and industries represented in post layoff jobs of displaced carpet-mill workers, April 1963 survey------6. Age differences in work history of displaced carpet-mill workers throughout post-layoff period, by sex, April 1963 survey___________ 7. Educational differences in work history of displaced carpet-mill work ers throughout post-layoff period, by sex, April 1963 survey------------ 4 6 8 9 10 10 12 V ll Contents—Continued Page Tables— Continued 8. Age differences in percent of displaced carpet-mill workers with cur rent jobs paying less, more, or same as carpet-mill jobs, by sex, April 1963 survey------------------------------------------------------------------------9. Educational differences in percent of displaced carpet-mill workers with current jobs paying less, more, or same as carpet-mill job, by sex, April 1963 survey----------------------------------------------------------------10. Pre- and post-layoff wage levels of displaced carpet-mill workers, April 1963 survey------------------------------------------------------------------------11. Age differences in post-layoff wage levels of displaced carpet-mill work ers, by sex, April 1963 survey------------------------------------------------------12. Educational differences in post-layoff wage levels of displaced carpetmill workers, by sex, April 1963 survey----------------------------------------13. Displaced carpet-mill workers’ post-layoff experience with unemploy ment insurance benefits, April 1963 survey________________________ 14. Sources of money income supplements to wages of displaced carpet-mill workers during year before layoff, April 1963 survey______________ 15. Methods of meeting post-layoff living expenses used by displaced carpet-mill workers, April 1963 survey---------------------------------------16. Withdrawal of savings by displaced carpet-mill workers following lay off, by size of net reduction, April 1963 survey____________________ 21 Chart. Displaced carpet-mill workers: Extent of unemployment following lay off, April 1963 survey-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 Appendix table A -l. Timing of the 1960-62 layoffs of production workers at the surveyed carpet mill_____________________________________________ ______ 23 viii 13 14 14 15 16 17 18 20 Summary In April 1963, at the time of the case study of carpet-mill workers who were laid off when the mill halved its employment between mid1960 and mid-1962, 1 of every 12 had ceased to look for work and 1 of 4 of those still in the labor force was unemployed. The unemploy ment rate among these workers was over 5 times the national rate at the time. It was 2% times the rate prevailing even in the small, economically depressed northeastern community where the carpet mill was located. The unfavorable employment situation of the carpet-mill workers, compared with other local workers, epitomizes problems confronting job less workers in areas such as this. There were no other carpet mills within 150 miles of the community, and although manufacturing in dustries dominated its economy, few of them utilized skills of the kind these workers had acquired at the mill. Most of the workers were middle aged and older persons with compara tively little education or training that would equip them for other kinds of work. These characteristics were especially pronounced among the fairly small number of women in the group studied. Moreover, many of the carpet-mill workers had spent most of their lives in the community, to which they were tied by extensive home ownership and, frequently, the local employ ment of a husband or wife. More than threefourths of them expressed unwillingness to ac cept a job beyond commuting distance of their homes, even if such a job should be offered. Given these circumstances, the carpet work ers’ employment situation in April 1963— bad as it was— was better than it had been during the post-layoff period as a whole. In the 10 to 34 months which had elapsed since they had been laid off, one-fifth o f the workers had never secured a full-time job that lasted as long as 3 months. Among those who did find such em ployment, half did so within 6 months, but oneeighth of the group required a year or more. Altogether, the workers had spent an average of 19 months in the labor force following layoff and had been unemployed for 9 of these months — 45 percent o f the time- Individual experience varied widely, however, ranging from no em ployment at all for 1 of every 8 to continuous employment during every week after layoff for 1 of every 12. The least favorable records were those for women, persons of little schooling, and workers of relatively advanced age. Nearly all of the reemployed workers had been forced to take up a different occupation and all were working in a different industry. Almost half had worked for at least 2 em ployers following their layoff. Thus it is not surprising, particularly in an economically depressed area, that two-thirds of the reemployed were earning less at the time of the interview than they had made at the carpet mill, even though the current average wage was somewhat higher than earnings on the first post-layoff jobs. The average for all post-layoff employment was 7 percent below mill earnings. Naturally these earnings data relate only to weeks in which the workers were employed. It appears that, for the reemployed group, the weekly income from wages, when spread over the entire period following layoff, was no more than 75 percent of the comparable figure for their last year at the mill. Even the addition of unemployment benefits— in many cases for an extended period— still left them in an inferior income position. And this takes no account of the 1 worker in 8 who had had no employment between the time he was laid off and April 1963. Yet, less than one-third of these workers had to resort to extreme means (heavy debts, sale of house, etc.) of adjusting to their reduced cir 1 cumstances. Demonstrating their self-reliance and frugality, they depended chiefly on ac cumulated savings, despite the fact that the carpet workers’ average earnings during the last year at the mill had been only $3,150. For the other two-thirds, their unemployment bene fits and what wages they were able to earn, with the frequent supplement of a spouse’s earnings, sufficed for the family’s living expenses throughout the post-layoff period. Background of the Study In line with this study’s original objective of exploring the situation of displaced workers in an industry confronted with competition from imported goods, the establishment selected for study was a carpet mill whose principal prod uct was (and is) Wilton carpets. The mill was thus in that part of the domestic industry which the U.S. Tariff Commission had found to be threatened by an increase in imports o f Wilton and velvet carpets after 1958, when the last of a series of scheduled cuts in the tariff on these products became effective. It was also known in advance of the study to have experi enced a severe decline in employment between 1958 and mid-1962, when the tariff was restored to its 1939 level. During the 2-year period ending in June 1962, the mill’s shipments fell by over 35 per cent, and it cut back its average monthly em ployment of production workers by 46 percent.1 The largest single reduction in employment oc curred in early 1962, when the mill closed its yarn spinning department, while continuing other operations. Otherwise, the mill’s employ ment fell gradually, but irregularly, during the 2-year period. The number of workers sep arated from mill employment, however, was much larger than the 46-percent net reduction implies, for the mill had a relatively high pro portion of intermittent employees, many of whom were hired and separated repeatedly dur ing the period in question. Since the scope of this study was confined to laid-off workers who were not likely to be re hired by the mill, the intermittent workers were to be excluded. This requirement was satisfied when the company provided its “ reemployment roster” as of June 30, 1962. The roster, estab 1 The longer (and unpublished) report on the study cautions that although increased import competition might, superficially, appear to have caused the mill’s layoffs, “ no such simple con clusion is warranted.” The material on which this finding is based has been omitted from the discussion o f the workers’ ex perience following layoff. 2 lished under a hiring clause in the company’s agreement with the Textile Workers Union of America, listed former employees (excluding quits and discharges for cause) who had pref erence over new applicants for any vacancy in their former type of work- Employees were retained on the list for 2 years following layoff or the length of previous service, whichever was shorter. Thus, the roster automatically excluded short-service or temporary employees but did list all former employees with longer tenure who had been laid off between July 1, 1960, and June 30,1962, and not rehired during that period. The 794 workers named in the list were considered to be displaced workers as defined for this study. In addition, the company provided, from personnel records, information about the 794 workers’ personal characteristics and skill level on their last job. This information furnished the controls for selecting a sample of 160 laidoff workers for interview. (See appendix A for further information on methodology.) It is also the basis for the data on age, sex, and marital status which are presented in the fol lowing section, together with a description of the economy of the mill community,2 as back ground for evaluating the subsequent material on the workers’ post-layoff experience. The bulk of that material was obtained from the sample of 160 workers. The interview schedule (appendix B) called for information on the workers’ education and training, their job at the mill (which was supplemented by company data on their weekly and annual earn ings), the effect of the layoff on their financial position and living arrangements, and their work and earnings history from the time of layoff to the time of the interview. 2 The data on age, sex, and material status relate to the entire group of 794 workers; the remainder o f the data on personal characteristics were obtained from the 160 workers who were inter viewed. Characteristics of the Laid-Off Workers and the Local Economy The Area’s Economy Industry group Between mid-1960 and mid-1962, when the carpet-mill workers in this study were being laid off, unemployment rates in the community where they worked ranged upward from 8% percent, as shown in the tabulation below, and rates of 13 percent or more were not unusual in the winter months. In fact, in the 3 years preceding the month in which these workers were interviewed, the unemployment rate did not drop below 7 percent. At the time of the interviews, it was over 10 percent. By com parison, the national unemployment rate moved within a range of 4 ^ -6 percent during these 3 years- Thus, the economy of the carpet-mill city was depressed throughout the period when the laid-off workers were seeking alternative employment. Registered unemployment as percent of civilian labor force February -----------------------------April ________________________ J u n e _________ ____ _ -----A u g u st----------------------------------O c to b e r _______ - — _ — D ecem b e r------- ---------------------- 1960 1961 1962 1963 __ 14.5 13.2 11.4 9.6 8.5 11.0 13.5 11.0 8.7 7.8 7.0 9.4 11.3 10.4 9.7 9.3 8.6 12.8 _____ _____ _____ — Source: Bimonthly data compiled by local office o f the State Employment Service. The extent and nature of other job oppor tunities can be indicated only in a general way, because of the need to avoid disclosing the identity and location of the carpet mill. The city in which the mill is located is in the north eastern United States and had a 1960 popula tion of less than 30,000. In the county sur rounding the city, the relative distribution of employment as of mid-March 1962 was as fol lows: Industry group Percent of employees Total ________________________________________________ Agriculture, forestry, and fish e rie s----------------------------------Mining ____________________________________________________ Building construction -------------------------------------------------------Manufacturing -----------------------------------------------------------------Textile mill p ro d u cts--------------------------------------------------Apparel and related p rod u cts-------------------------------------Paper and allied p ro d u cts------------------------------------------Printing and publishing --------------------------------------------Leather and leather p ro d u cts-------------------------------------All other m anu facturing--------------------------------------------Transportation and public u tilitie s ----------------------------------Wholesale t r a d e ___________________________________________ Retail trade --------------------------------------------------------------------- 100.0 0.1 (*) 3.6 65.4 18.8 11.5 1.0 2.4 3.4 26.8 3.1 4.2 12.9 Percent of employees Finance, insurance, and real e s ta te _______________________ Services ___________________________________________________ 1 Number withheld in original source to avoid disclosure. 3.3 8.8 N ote: Because o f rounding, sums o f individual items may not equal totals. Source: U.S. Department o f Commerce, Bureau o f the Census, County Business Patterns, 1962 (Volume and page withheld to avoid disclosure). The concentration of employment in manu facturing may be regarded as favorable to the reemployment of the production workers dis placed from the carpet mill. The proportion in manufacturing was about double the national ratio. Although nearly one-fifth of the local employment was in textile industries, there was little local demand for labor in the carpet mill section of textiles. Apparel industries, which commanded about 1 employee of every 9 in the area, actually provided better employment op portunities for the former carpet-mill workers. But the presumably favorable distribution of employment should not cause one to lose sight of the fact that this was a small community where the loss o f jobs by 800 workers, even spread over a 2-year period, could have a noticeable effect on the unemployment rate. The Workers’ Characteristics Job loss in such an area might be expected to prompt the unemployed to look elsewhere, but few of the characteristics of the laid-off carpet workers were consistent with this ex pectation. Indeed, more than 98 percent of the workers in the interview sample were still liv ing in the area in April 1963, which was from 10 to 34 months after the time they had been laid off. Their age, marital status educational level, home ownership and the employment of other family members all tended to tie this group quite firmly to the community.3* The laid-off carpet-mill workers were heavily concentrated in the older age groups. About 55 percent of them were at least 45 years old, com 3 As indicated in the preceding section (p. 2) the data on age, sex, and marital status relate to the entire group o f 794 workers; the remainder o f the data on personal characteristics were obtained from the 160 workers who were interviewed. 3 pared with about 40 percent of the workers in the U.S. labor force in 1960-63. Moreover, as the following tabulation shows, none of the women and only a few of the men were under the age of 25. A ge in 1960 sexes Number _________ _________ 794 Percent __________ _________ 100 14 to 19 years _______________-------------(i) 20 to 24 vears _________ 2 25 to 84 years ______________ _________ 14 35 to 44 y e a r s _________ ___ _________ 30 45 to 54 y e a r s _______ ____ ___ _________ 41 55 to 54 y e a r s _______ _ ____ _ 13 65 to 69 years ______________ __________ 1 1 Less than 0.5 percent. All ages: Men Women 556 100 (*) 2 16 30 35 16 1 238 100 __ __ 8 30 53 8 __ N ote: Because o f rounding, sums o f individual items may not equal totals. This age distribution was highly unfavorable to the reemployment opportunities of the carpet-mill workers. The 70 to 30 ratio of men to women in the group studied was quite typical of the carpet industry and of the labor force as a whole. However, an unusually high proportion of both the men and women in the study were married. Almost three-fifths of the men and about onefourth of the women were married, whereas the comparable figures for the labor force in recent years have been about one-half and one-fifth. Much of the differences may be attributed to the concentration of the carpet workers in the age groups which have the largest proportions of married persons in the labor force. The prevalence of married workers in the survey group helped to ease the loss of income following layoff, for exactly half of the 160 interviewed workers reported a spouse’s earn ings as a source of family income in the year preceding their layoff at the mill.4 This was an unusually high proportion, since only one-third of the married women in the United States are in the labor force. What made it even more unusual was the fact that only three-tenths of the interviewed workers, compared with fourtenths o f U.S. families, had no minor children. Perhaps part of this difference too is attribut able to the age distribution of the workers, which would suggest that many of the mothers might have returned to work when their chil dren reached teenage. 4 Further information on the workers’ income is given on p. 13. 4 Another part of the explanation for the prev alence of two-earner families is undoubtedly to be found in the educational distribution o f the former carpet-mill workers, in view of the established association between income and years of schooling.5 Whereas 52 percent of the men and 61 percent o f the women in the labor force in March 1962 had completed 4 years of high school,6 the corresponding proportions of the laid-off carpet workers were 21 and 7. (See table 1.) Indeed, one-fifth of the carpet workers had had less than 8 years of formal schooling, and another three-tenths— the largest single group— had completed just 8 years. As usual among factory workers, the men had the higher educational level, with three-fifths of the women but less than half of the men having no more than an elementary school education. These proportions were half again as high as those recorded for white persons employed in blue-collar occupations in March 1964.7 Thus, scant education may well have put many of the carpet-mill workers at a disadvantage in seeking other factory work. T a b l e 1. Y e a r s o f S c h o o l C o m p l e t e d b y D is p l a c e d C a r p e t -M il l W o r k e r s, b y S e x , A p r il Years of school completed Both sexes 1963 Survey Men Women Number________________ Percent_________________ 160 100 116 100 44 100 7 years or less_________________________ 8 years________________ _____________ 9 to 11 years__________________________ 12 years or more_______________________ Not reported__________________________ 19 31 31 17 2 20 27 80 21 3 18 41 34 7 Total: Although about two-fifths of the workers re ported some formal job training either in addi tion to or in the course of their schooling, ap parently it had limited current value. Only 12 of the 67 workers who had taken such training said that it had helped them to get or hold any job following their layoff. Infrequent use of their training may be as sociated with its source. Few had served an apprenticeship or attended a trade school or technical institute (less than 10 percent in either category)— training which tends to be 6 See, for example, Herman P. Miller, “ Income in Relation to Education,” American Economic Review, December 1960, pp. 963985. 6 “ Educational Attainment o f Workers, March 1964,” Monthly Labor Review, May 1965, p. 518, also available as reprint 2463. * Ibid, p. 523. widely used.8 Similarly, about one-fourth of the reported training had been taken in the Armed Forces— a type of training with re stricted carryover value. Moreover, a like pro portion of the training had been obtained in high school and was thus not likely to have been taken recently, in view of the study group’s age level. Generally, training of recent origin is most useful, and only in the clerical occupations (which were excluded from this survey) is high school training widely applied. It is apparent, then, that formal occupational training, despite its prevalence, provided no very substantial offset to the carpet workers’ educational disadvantages. Their mobility in finding new employment was further restricted by a long history of stable residence and a high frequency of home ownership. Nearly one-half of the group in terviewed had been bom in the city where the carpet mill was located, and more than threefourths had been born within the State. More over, all but 4 o f the 160 persons had lived within 20 miles of the carpet mill for at least 10 years before they were laid off, and over half of them had done so for at least 40 years, as shown below: Length of residence in area 1 at time o f layoff 60 50 40 30 20 10 to to to to to to Distribution o f workers Number Percent Total -----------------------------------------------64 y e a r s _____________________________ 59 y e a r s _____________________________ 49 y e a r s _____________________________ 39 y e a r s _____________________________ 29 y e a r s _____________________________ 19 years _____________________________ 160 5 34 49 30 14 24 100 3 21 31 19 9 15 8 See Formal Occupational Training o f Adult Workers; Its E x tent, Nature and Use (U.S. Department o f Labor, Manpower Ad ministration, Office o f Manpower, Automation and Training), Man power/Automation Research Monograph No. 2, 1964, tables 4 and 8. Length o f residence in area 1 at time of layoff Less than 10 y e a r s ________________________ Not r e p o rte d ______________________________ Distribution o f workers Number Percent 1 3 1 2 1 Within 20 miles o f the carpet mill. N ote: Because o f rounding, sums o f individual items may not equal totals. Thus, the median length of residence in the area was equivalent to the median age of the group. By the time of the interview 5 of the 166 persons in the sample were living outside the 20-mile area around the mill, and another 3 failed to respond to the question regarding length of residence. Even if all eight of these were regarded as having moved outside the area, at least three-quarters of the group had continued to live within 20 miles of the carpet mill for 20 years or more. Only 1 person had moved after being laid off at the mill and he still lived in the area. Stability of residence (as well as the small ness of the community) was reflected in a high rate of home ownership (57.5 percent), which served in turn to make the laid-off workers reluctant to move or to consider a job beyond commuting distance of their homes. Only 5 o f the 160 persons interviewed had been employed, and only 23 had looked for a job, outside the local area at any time after their layoff. Indeed, over three-fourths o f the group (123) stated that they would be unwilling to accept a joboutside commuting distance even if such a job were offered. The most frequent reason (given by 33 persons) was home ownership. Another 16 persons cited the local employment of a husband or wife. Those who were unwilling to consider moving to another area also included persons who were satisfactorily reemployed and a few who were no longer looking for paid em ployment. Employment Experience 1 in 4 of those still in the labor force was un employed. 2. Only three-fourths of the interviewed had secured any full-time job lasting at least 3 1. When they were interviewed in April months at any time since layoff, and one-quarter 1963, about 1 in 12 had left the labor force and o f these had taken at least 39 weeks to do so. On all four measures of employment experi ence used in this study, the laid-off carpet-mill workers had a low score: 5 3. Less than half were still on the first job they had gotten following layoff, and nearly one-fourth had worked for 3 or more employers. 4. Although the “ average” former carpet worker had been in the labor force (i.e., work ing or looking for work) in 19 of the 20 months that had elapsed since layoff, he had been unemployed for 9 of these months, and 1 of every 8 workers had had no employment at all, even a temporary of a part-time job. On every count, the women’s experience was less favorable than the men’s. Similarly, the older workers generally had more difficulty than the younger and the workers with less schooling more than the better educated. Labor Force Status, April 1963 In April 1963, the national unemployment rate for experienced wage and salary workers was 5.5 percent, and the rate in the area where the carpet mill is located was 10.4 percent. In sharp contrast, the rate for the former carpet workers, whether computed for all 160 who were interviewed or for the 146 who were in the labor force, approximated 25 percent (table 2). Among the carpet workers, as among any group where long-term joblessness is prevalent, the exact percentage who should be counted as unemployed on a given date is uncertain, especially when jobs are scarce and unemploy ment has been rising. The problem of deter mining how assiduously those who have been jobless for an extended period are seeking work is aggravated where, as here, they are members of families with other means of support (an employed m ember(s), a pension, etc.), are strongly attached to the area, or formerly were relatively high on the community wage scale. The problem here involved 8 of the 37 currently unemployed workers; these 8 reported they had had no job at all since being laid off from the carpet mill. To assign all eight, or even the five who had been out of work for a year or more, to the group who had withdrawn from the labor force would, of course, reduce the unemployment rate, as a percentage of both the entire study group and those in the labor force. Even if one could defend such revisions against the charge that they equate lack of a job with lack of desire for one, they would not alter the conclusion to be drawn from the figures: the incidence of unemployment among the carpet-mill workers was at least three times that among the country’s experienced workers and at least twice that among local workers. T able 2. L abor F orce Status of D isplaced Carpet-M ill W orkers, by A ge and Sex , A pril 1963 S urvey Percent Number Age and sex Employed Total B oth Sexes Total___________________ 19 to 38 years_________________ 39 to 54 years_________________ 55 to 69 years_________________ M en Total___________________ 19 to 38 years_________________ 39 to 54 years_________________ 55 to 69 years_________________ W omen Total___________________ 19 to 38 years_________________ 39 to 54 years_________________ 55 to 69 years_________________ Unem ployed Not in labor force Total Parttime Full time 160 39 96 25 109 38 59 12 3 1 1 1 106 37 58 11 37 1 30 6 114 116 33 63 20 89 33 45 11 3 1 1 1 86 32 44 10 17 10 14 3 4 6 44 6 33 5 20 5 14 1 20 5 14 1 20 1 16 3 3 1 7 7 4 Employed Total Unem ployed Total Parttime Full time 100 100 100 100 68 97 61 48 2 3 1 4 66 95 60 44 23 3 31 24 100 100 100 100 76 97 71 55 3 3 2 5 74 95 70 50 15 3 22 15 100 100 100 100 45 83 42 20 45 83 42 20 45 17 48 60 Not in labor force 9 7 28 9 6 30 9 9 20 Percent of workers in labor force Em Unem ployed ployed 75 97 66 67 25 3 34 33 84 97 76 79 16 3 24 21 50 83 47 25 50 17 53 75 1 Includes 6 “ unable to work,” 4 “ doing own housework,” and 4 who had retired. Serious as unemployment was for the carpet workers generally, it was even worse for the women in the group. As table 2 shows, women accounted for not quite three-tenths of the workers interviewed, but for over half of the 6 unemployed. In each of the three age groups— u 19 1 to 38, 39 to 54, and 55 to 69 9— for which 9These three age groups are designed to give better representa «tion of younger, middle-age, and older persons in the entire group of laid-off workers than use of the customary 10-year age classes would £ provide. data are presented, unemployment was strik ingly lower for the men. In the most numerous group— age 39 to 54— the women were unem ployed twice as frequently as the men. The overall rate was three times as high for women as for men— 46 and 15 percent, respectively. High unemployment and the nature of job op portunities in the area may help to explain why the women’s rates were so much higher than the men’s. Nationally, the 1963 rate for men aged 45-54, for example, was 3.6 percent; that for women of the same ages, 4.2.101 Among the comparable groups of carpet workers, the re spective rates were 22.4 and 60.9.11 For the aforementioned reasons, the unem ployment rates among the carpet workers may be somewhat overstated, especially for women. And a surprisingly small number of women reported themselves as having withdrawn from the labor force; indeed, the proportion was the same for women as for men (9 percent). The small numbers of younger and older women in the sample (although proportionate to the total number laid off) may make the data for women in these two age groups somewhat unreliable. But even in the larger middle-aged group, nearly half of the women said they were un employed and still looking for work— a larger proportion than might have been expected in a group of married women who had lost their jobs from 10 to 34 months earlier. The effects of advancing age on employment status at the time of interview are more clearcut for women than for men. The younger the woman, the more likely she was to be in the labor force and to be employed and the less likely to be unemployed. The proportion of women employed at the time of interview in the most numerous middle-age group was double that for the oldest women but only half that for the youngest group. The 45-percent average for the women was clearly dominated by the record of the intermediate group. Among the men, however, although the youngest group also had the most favorable employment and unemployment experience, the relationship of the other two groups differed from the women’s pattern. Fewer of the oldest 10 See Manpotver Report o f the President, March 1964, p. 200. 11 The 45-54 age group was the largest 10-year cohort studied among both men and women, containing 49 men and 23 women who were in the labor force. than of the middle-age men were unemployed. But this was due to their higher rate of labor force withdrawal, rather than to any greater success in finding jobs, for only 55 percent of the oldest men, compared with 71 percent of the middle group, were employed. Again, the ex perience of the dominant middle group weighed heavily in the overall employment rate of 76 percent. For all interviewed workers, men and women alike, the proportion employed was 68 percent. Taking just those in the labor force, the com parable figure was 75 percent, which rep resented 50 percent of the women and 84 per cent of the men. Even if these percentages understate the extent of employment because the labor force should exclude a few workers here counted as unemployed, they clearly sup port the expectation, advanced in the preceding section, that the carpet-mill workers would have great difficulty in finding new jobs. Employment and Unemployment Since Layoff It is also apparent that the carpet workers’ employment difficulties were persistent and pro longed, as well as prevalent. The evidence is found in data on the length of time required to get a new job, the number and types of jobs held since layoff, and labor force status throughout the period between layoff and in terview. Time Elapsed Before Reemployment. Although only 109 of the 160 carpet workers were at work in April 1963, as table 2 showed, 138— or 86 percent of the total— had obtained some kind of employment at some time between lay off and interview. (See table 3.) Fourteen of these, however, had never had a “ substantial” job, that is, a full-time job for pay on which they had been continuously employed for 3 months or more.12 12 The purpose o f this definition was to obtain a stable measure which would reveal the extent to which the workers lacked regular employment and income throughout the post-layoff period (which, incidentally, had a minimum span o f nearly 10 months—from June 1962 when the last layoffs occurred to April 1963 when the workers were interviewed. The definition sought to exclude employment at temporary, odd jobs that might have been obtained at random, as well as employment at jobs that soon proved, contrary to the worker’s expectations, to be temporary or unsatisfactory. The specification o f a 3-month period had the further merit o f avoiding subjective definitions o f “ substantial” by either interviewer or respondent, o f being independent o f the amount earned on a job, and o f exceeding the probable duration o f probationary service on any jobs which this group of workers might be expected to obtain. 7 T able 3. Success and L ength of Search for Substantial J ob 1 by D isplaced Carpet-M ill W orkers by A ge and Sex , A pril 1963 Survey Success and length of search All workers_________________ No substantial job from layoff to April 1963______________________ Withdrawn from labor force___ In labor force but no job to April 1963............................... Employed at some time be tween layoff and April 1963, but lfo substantial job Obtained substantial job by April 1963......... ........................................ Average number of weeks from lay off to first substantial job________ Men Both sexes All ages 19 to 38 39 to 54 55 to 69 years years years All ages 160 39 96 25 116 36 14 4 20 7 12 7 6 8 19 to 38 39 to 54 55 to 69 years years years 33 All ages 19 to 38 39 to 54 55 to 69 years years years 63 20 44 6 33 5 16 10 8 4 8 6 20 4 4 12 3 4 1 2 4 2 2 4 2 14 4 7 3 2 124 35 76 13 100 27.2 31.3 33.5 28.1 Women 27.2 4 12 4 5 3 2 21 1 33 55 12 24 26.7 30.2 33.8 31.4 34.5 34.4 30.0 1A job providing continuous, full-time employment for 3 months or more. For the 124 who were reemployed on a sub stantial job, the length of time required to find that job ranged from less than 1 week for 10 workers to 112 weeks for 1 worker (not shown separately in table 3 ). One-fourth of the work ers found substantial jobs within 3 months; at the other extreme, nearly one-fourth required 9 months or more, and one-eighth 1 year or more, as shown in the following tabulation: Length o f search for first substantial j o b 1 Number Percent Total finding substantial j o b -------------124 100 Less than 1 w e e k __________________________ 10 8 1 to 13w e e k s ________________________________ 31 25 14 to 26w e e k s ________________________________ 30 25 27 to 39w e e k s ________________________________ 24 19 40 to 52w e e k s ________________________________ 13 10 53 to 112 w e e k s ____________________________ 16 13 1 A job providing continuous, full-time employment for 3 months o r more. N ote: Because o f rounding, sums o f individual items may not equal totals. The median duration of their job search was 6 months. Unfortunately, no comparative na tional data are available to evaluate whether these periods of time were usual or unusual. Women in every age bracket were less suc cessful than men in finding a substantial job; 45 percent of all the women but only 14 percent o f the men never obtained such a job. The pro portion of men who were successful rose with age, but nearly twice as many of the youngest as of the middle-age group of women did not find reemployment in this sense. The figure for the youngest women reflects too few observa tions to permit more than conjecture; it may suggest that they were less firmly attached to wage employment than the older ones. The ex 8 treme variations related to age and sex were found among the men under age 39, none of whom failed to get a substantial job, and among the five women over age 54, only one o f whom got such a job. Being a woman or an older worker also tend ed to lengthen the time required to find a sub stantial job. The average time, however, is strongly influenced by a heavy concentration around 30 weeks for both men and women. Both extremes of the fairly narrow range oc curred in the youngest age group, where the average for men was 26.7 weeks and that for women, 34.5 weeks. While the women in the middle-age group took approximately the same length of time as the youngest and those in the oldest group took less time than either, the small numbers of women outside the middleage group preclude generalizations. Among the men, the length of the search for a substantial job was clearly longer for the older workers. Success in finding a substantial job was also closely related to the workers’ educational at tainments (table 4 ). With one exception, more schooling facilitated eventual reemployment on a substantial job for both men and women. Among men, the proportion who obtained such a job rose from 74 percent of those who had not finished elementary school to 96 percent of those who had completed high school, although the latter figure was not significantly higher than that for the men with 9 to 11 years of schooling. Women with this much education, however, were less successful than those who had just 8 years of schooling; otherwise, the pattern of reemployment rising with education prevailed. Opposite relationships between education and the length of time required to find a substantial job obtained for men and women. Among the women, the more educated the group, the short er the time required; the average length of their job search dropped sharply from 38 weeks for those with the least education to 22 weeks for those with the most schooling. Among the men, on the other hand, the time required to find substantial reemployment rose as the group’s schooling increased, with an insignifi cant exception for the group with precisely 8 years of schooling. The least educated men re quired 25 weeks; those with the most education, 31 weeks. The men’s experience may imply that the better educated were more determined and better able to be selective job hunters in a depressed community. T able 4. E ducational D ifferences in Success and L ength of Search for Substantial J ob * by D is placed Carpet-M ill W orkers, by Sex , A pril 1963 S urvey Number of workers reporting Percent of workers obtaining any substantial jo b 2 Average number of weeks layoff to substantial job * Years of school Weeks layoff to substantial job Both sexes____ 77 28 157 121 7 years or less_______ 8 years______________ 9 to 11 years..... ......... 12 years and over____ 68 71 80 92 27 27 28 30 31 49 50 27 21 35 40 25 85 30 113 98 74 81 94 96 25 24 29 31 23 31 35 24 17 25 33 17 Women_______ 53 31 44 23 7 years or less_______ 8 years______________ 9 to 11 years. _ ____ 12 years and over____ 30 56 47 67 38 36 23 22 8 18 15 3 4 10 7 2 Sex and years of school completed Men_______ 7 years or less----------8 years_____________ 9 to 11 years------------12 years and over____ 1 A job providing continuous, full-time employment for 3 months or more. 2 Percent of number reporting years of school attended; excludes 3 men who did not report years of school. * Average of the weeks reported by the number of workers in column 4. Number and Types of Jobs Obtained. The laidoff carpet-mill workers also showed consider able diversity in other aspects of their reem ployment experience— retention of the first job and the number of employers, occupations, and industries represented in their post-layoff his tory. Altogether, somewhat less than half of all workers who had found jobs were still working at their first job by the time of the interviews. In 7 out of 10 cases, the first job after layoff was a substantial one, but even so, nearly half of this group were no longer working at the same job when they were interviewed in April 1963. An even larger proportion (threefourths) of those whose first jobs had not been a substantial one had been separated from their original post-layoff employment by April 1963. Retention of first jobs following layoff Number All reemployed w o r k e r s _____________________ Obtained substantial first j o b 1 _______________ Retained to April 1963 ___________________ Not retained to April 1963 ____________ Obtained other first j o b ______________________ Retained to April 1963 _________________ Not retained to April 1963 _______________ 138 96 63 43 42 10 32 Percent 100 70 38 31 30 7 23 1 A job providing continuous full-time employment for 3 months or more. N ote: Sums rounding. of percentages do not equal totals because of Since there was no other carpet mill within 150 miles of the community where the displaced workers had been employed and none had found a substantial job that far from home, all of the reemployed workers had gone to work in an other industry. (The survey excluded any who had been recalled to the carpet mill.) In fact, more than two-fifths of these former factory production workers found jobs in nonmanufac turing industries, especially construction and the service industries, as shown below: Industry of first substantial j o b 1 Total finding substantial j o b _________ Manufacturing _____________________________ Nonmanufacturing _________________________ C onstruction____________________________ Service -------------------------------------------------Trade ___________________________________ Agriculture ____________________________ Transportation _________________________ Other ___________________________________ Number 124 73 51 17 13 8 3 1 9 Percent 109 59 41 14 10 6 2 1 7 1 A job providing continuous full-time employment for 3 months or more. One-third of the reemployed workers (includ ing those whose first jobs were not substantial) had worked for more than one industry after layoff; indeed, one-fourth had worked in three or four different industries. Undoubtedly the limited number of different industries in the small local area precluded any greater variety of industrial shifts, even by those persons who worked for several different employers and who performed several kinds of jobs after being laid off by the carpet mill. (See table 5.) 9 T able 5. N umber of E mployers, K inds of J obs, and I ndustries R epresented in P ost-L ayoff J obs of D isplaced Carpet-M ill W orkers, A pril 1963 Survey Employers Number of employers, jobs, or industries Kinds of jo b s1 Industries2 Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent of of of of of of workers workers workers workers workers workers Total____ 138 100 138 100 138 100 1_____________ 2 _____________ 3_____________ 4_____________ 5_____________ 6____ ________ 62 45 21 7 2 1 45 33 15 5 1 1 82 11 31 11 2 1 59 8 22 8 1 1 94 11 28 5 68 8 20 4 1 Based on work history records taken by interviewers with job place ment experience and edited to discriminate between jobs with differing content. 2 Based on 3-digit industry groups as defined in the Standard Industrial Classification Manual (U.S. Bureau of the Budget, 1957). N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. histories cover a span of time ranging from 39 to 143 weeks. Their average length was 86.3 weeks, as shown in table 6. An average o f al most 5 of these weeks were spent out of the labor force, reflecting primarily the withdrawal from the labor force of 14 persons— 2 who did not seek employment at any time after layoff and 12 others who ultimately withdrew but first spent varying amounts of time in the labor force. Of the 81.6 weeks in the labor force, nearly 45 were weeks of employment and 37, of unemployment, or about 55 and 45 percent re spectively of all weeks spent in the labor force. In other words, the former carpet-mill workers had been unemployed for 9 of the 20 months that had elapsed since they were laid off; an average of almost 5*4 months a year.13 The average number of employers was 1.8 per worker during the median period of 23 months elapsed from layoff to interview— tan tamount to a different employer every 13 months. Nearly one-third had worked for two employers, about one-sixth for three, and a scattering for four, five, or six different em ployers. Altogether, 55 percent had worked for more than one employer. In almost all cases, their new jobs were quite different from their jobs at the carpet mill, and three-fifths of the reemployed workers con tinued to do the new kind of work wherever they were subsequently employed. Over onefifth of the reemployed, however, had three dif ferent kinds of jobs and one-tenth had four or more. There being no national benchmark data, the workers’ own past experience may serve. The 160 interviewed workers had an average o f 6.9 weeks when they received no pay from the car pet mill during the 52 weeks before each was laid off.14 Their layoff somewhat more than trebled the amount of unemployment experi enced in the course of a year. All ages___ 86 5 37 44 5 43 52 Work History. As might be inferred from the degree of mobility between employers, kinds of jobs, and industries, as well as from the diffi culties in finding a substantial job, the former carpet-mill workers had been unemployed much of the time between their layoffs and the April 1963 interviews. Their experience ranged from no further employment at all for 1 of every 8 workers to continuous employment for 1 of every 12. (See chart.) Apart from these two extremes, relatively few were unemployed for more than 70 percent or less than 20 percent of the weeks after layoff when they were seeking work. The median o f the distribution was 47 percent. Because the layoffs were spread over the July 1960-June 1962 period, the individual work M e n ___________ Women _ _______ 19 to 38 years----M en________ Women_____ 39 to 54 years----Men________ Women. 55 to 69 years___ M en________ Women_____ 89 79 93 96 75 84 86 90 85 88 75 4 6 2 (2) 11 3 3 4 14 12 21 34 45 26 24 4 40 36 47 44 45 39 51 27 65 72 23 41 47 30 27 30 15 5 8 2 (2) 15 4 4 4 16 13 29 38 57 28 25 54 47 42 59 52 51 52 57 35 69 75 31 49 54 37 32 35 20 10 T able 6. A ge D ifferences in W ork H istory of D is placed C arpet-M ill W orkers T hroughout P ostL ayoff P eriod, by S ex , A pril 1963 Survey Average number of elapsed weeks Sex and age group Percent of total elapsed weeks Total Out of Outof labor Unem Em number labor Unem Em of weeks force ployed ployed force ployed ployed 1 All weeks in which the worker had any paid employment. 2 Less than 1 percent. 13 As pointed out earlier (p. 6), a few o f the workers counted as unemployed may not have been actually available for work during all the weeks when they were so classified. On the other hand, the amount o f unemployment may be understated somewhat because a worker was counted as employed during every week when he had any work, even though he may have been working irregularly or part-time while looking for a steady, full-time job. 14 Some allowance should probably be made for imprecise rec ollection by the workers in reporting on their carpet-mill jobs, although in many cases they consulted their own pay records and all were required to account for the entire 52 weeks prior to the layoff. DISPLACED CARPET-MILL WORKERS Extent of Unemployment Following Layoff (April 1963 Survey) Percent of Workers 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 99 Weeks of U nem ploym ent as Percent of Weeks in Labor Force In the post-layoff period, unemployment— whether actual duration or the proportion of weeks elapsed since layoff— had generally been lowest among the youngest workers and highest among the oldest. Part of the advantage of the younger workers stems from the fact that their work histories spanned a longer interval. They had lost their carpet-mill jobs earlier than the 11 older workers, presumably because they had less seniority, and thus had an earlier chance at existing job opportunities. At extremes of the range, the proportions of weeks unemployed were 25 percent for men under age 39 and 59 percent for middle-aged women. These repre sented 26.3 and 47.2 weeks of unemployment, respectively. There may be little significance to the fact that the oldest women reported less unemployment than the middle-aged group be cause of the small numbers involved, but it did represent an exception to the age pattern. The oldest women also provided another exception: they did not have more unemployment than men of the same age. actually obtained. Alternatively, the data may be interpreted, particularly for the oldest women, to mean that they found such hopeless prospects of reemployment that they abandoned — at least intermittently— any serious attempt to seek a job. The economist might properly classify them as out of the labor force, whereas the sociologist might well make a convincing case for continuing to count them as long-term unemployed, in order to keep them on the public conscience. However, the numbers involved here are small and hence can be used to suggest that a policy issue of this nature may exist, rather than to support any particular resolu tion of such an issue. Employment was another matter. In every age group, the men were employed for a far larger portion of the time after layoff than the women— 54 v. 35 percent, on the average. The contrast was least pronounced in the numeri cally dominant middle-age groups, but even there the percentage was about 1y% times as high for men as for women. There were clearcut age differentials in post-layoff employment among the men, with the youngest men having been employed 75 percent of the time since lay off and the oldest men only 35 percent of the time. Among the women, however, the interme diate age group attained the fullest employment (37 percent of elapsed tim e ); the youngest had a slightly poorer record and the oldest women were only about half as successful as the mid dle-age groups. For both men and women, work history was strongly associated with years of schooling completed. Without exception, the better edu cated groups were employed for a larger pro portion of the time subsequent to layoff than the less well educated (table 7). Among the men, for example, those with less than 8 years of schooling were employed for only 46 percent of the weeks following layoff, in contrast to 68 percent for those with 12 years or more o f school. Among the much smaller group of women who were reemployed at all, education had an even more decisive relation to employed time than for the men. The data on men tend to confirm the inference that the better edu- Weeks spent out of the labor force repre sented 5 percent of elapsed time for men and 8 percent for women. The age-sex groups with the fullest employment also had the lowest pro portions of time out of the labor force. Con versely, relatively high rates of unemployment and of time out of the labor force tended to be associated. At one extreme were the youngest men, and at the other were the oldest women. Both the youngest and the oldest groups of women had lower proportions of employed time and o f weeks looking for work, as well as a higher proportion of time out of the labor force, than the middle-aged women. One could interpret these findings as suggest ing that the women’s willingness to seek a new job was a major determinant of the percent of elapsed time during which employment was 12 T able 7. E ducational D ifferences in W ork H istory of D isplaced Carpet-M ill W orkers T hroughout P ost-L ayoff P eriod, by Sex , A pril 1963 S urvey Average number of weeks Sex and years of school completed Total___ Total 86 Years of school not reported. _ 83 87 Both sexes— 80 7 years or less__ 81 8 years------------87 9 to 11 years___ 12 years and over____ 100 89 Men........... 84 7 years or less— 79 8 years________ 92 9 to 11 years— 12 years and over........ 104 Women. _ 79 68 7 years or less— 84 8 years________ 76 9 to 11 years___ 12 years 83 and over____ Em Unem ployed 1 ployed Out of labor force Weeks employed Num ber as percent of of total workers weeks 44 37 5 52 160 60 44 33 35 47 22 37 41 42 35 5 6 4 5 71 51 41 43 54 3 157 31 49 50 68 51 38 41 55 28 34 40 35 33 5 4 6 3 4 67 57 46 52 60 27 113 23 31 35 71 26 18 25 28 28 46 44 55 40 5 6 6 4 8 68 33 27 30 37 24 44 8 18 15 45 29 9 55 3 1 All weeks in which the worker had any paid employment. cated can afford to be— and are— more selective in finding suitable alternative employment. In deed, the men who had finished high school were the only group whose total duration of un employment did not exceed the time taken to obtain their first substantial jobs. Thus, they were apparently able to use temporary jobs to finance their longer search for permanent work. Workers’ Income After Layoff Considering the employment record of the laid-off carpet-mill workers, it was almost in evitable that they would suffer drastic reduc tions in wage income for which unemployment compensation could provide only a partial and temporary offset. As in the case of employment and unemployment, the least favorable earn ings records were found for women, older workers, and workers with little education. Current Earnings Position Among those who were at work when inter viewed in April 1968, two-thirds reported they were earning less than they had earned at the carpet mill (table 8). This was to be expected because of the extensive shifts in industry and occupation they had made in order to find jobs in a depressed community. In these circum stances, it is rather surprising that about onefifth of them were earning more than before layoff. Women suffered a decrease in earnings after layoff more frequently than men and older workers more frequently than younger. Ninetenths of the reemployed women, compared with five-eighths of the men, were earning less than they had during the last month in the carpet mill. Even among the youngest workers, fourfifths of the women had lower earnings, com pared with less than three-fifths of the men. The ratios in the middle age group, which was numerically largest, approximated those for all reemployed men and women. Among the workers over age 55, the 1 reemployed woman was earning less, as were all but 1 of the 11 men. No woman of any age reported earning about the same as she had in the carpet mill. One of every 8 men, however, had about the same earnings, with the proportion ranging down ward from about 1 of 6 for the youngest men to 1 of 11 for the oldest. T able 8. A ge D ifferences in P ercent of Displaced Carpet-M ill W orkers w ith Current J obs P aying Less , More, or S ame as Carpet-M ill J ob,1 by S ex , A pril 1963 S urvey Sex and age group Workers with current job Percent c>f workers <earning— Less More Same Number Percent All ages--------- 109 100 68 22 10 Men_____________ Women___________ 19 to 38 years____ Men................ . Women________ 39 to 54 years____ Men___________ W om en________ 55 to 69 years____ Men___________ Women________ 88 21 38 33 5 59 44 15 12 11 1 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 62 90 60 58 80 67 59 93 92 91 100 25 10 26 27 20 24 29 7 12 13 15 8 11 8 9 1 Carpet-mill earnings on which comparisons are based are gross earnings during the week ending nearest the 15th of the month prior to each worker's layoff, as shown on the mill's payroll records. Current earnings were classified as “ same'' if they were within 5 percent of mill earnings, “ less” if they were less than 95 percent of mill earnings, and “ more” if more than 105 percent of mill earnings. N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. None of the oldest group of either men or women was earning more. In the other two age groups, the proportion who had increased their earnings was higher for women age 19-38 and for men age 39-54. These findings add another dimension to the less favorable employment experience of women and older workers. With respect to women, their post-layoff earnings record represented a widening of the sex differentials in earnings that had existed between carpet-mill jobs, perhaps associated with the skill levels of the jobs they held. The relationship between education and com parative earnings position also was similar to that observed for various other aspects of em ployment. Nearly all o f the women were earn ing less when interviewed than they had earned before layoff, regardless of education. Among the men, however, the better educated showed a consistently more favorable comparison be tween current earnings and those before lay 13 earnings and five of post-layoff income. None of the post-layoff average earnings— on the first job after layoff, the first substantial job, or the most recent job— is more than 95 per cent of earnings during the last month at the carpet mill, and the average for all post-layoff employment is only 93 percent of mill earn ings. And this counts only the weeks in which the workers were employed. If the earnings are averaged over the entire layoff period the disparity increases to a minimum of 25 percent in comparison with the last 52 weeks at the mill, even though the workers had been unem ployed for 7 of those weeks. When, finally, unemployment benefits are added to wages, it appears that the average income of the inter viewed workers following layoff was approxi mately two-thirds of weekly earnings in their last month at the carpet mill. off. Thus, only 13 percent of the least educated men were earning more in April 1963 than when they worked at the carpet mill (table 9). By contrast, 43 percent of the men with 12 years or more of schooling had a better paying current job. T able 9. E ducational D ifferences in P ercent of D isplaced Carpet-M ill W orkers w ith Current J obs P aying L ess, M ore, or Same as Carpet M ill J obs,1 by Sex , A pril 1963 Survey Sex and years of school completed Workers with current job Number Percent Percent of workers earning— Less More Same Both sexes___ 2104 100 68 22 10 Men_________ 84 100 62 25 12 7 years or less------8 years----------------9 to 11 years______ 12 years or more__ Women__ 15 22 26 21 20 100 100 100 100 100 73 64 58 52 90 13 18 27 43 10 13 18 15 5 4 4 9 3 100 100 100 100 75 100 89 100 25 7 y e n ra n r lnoa 8 years 9 to 11 years 12 years or more__ The lowest earnings on the various post layoffs jobs were naturally those on the workers, initial jobs. On these jobs, gross weekly wages averaged $65.19, compared with $73.75 during the last month of employment in the carpet mill. The reduction, which averaged 11.6 per cent, was especially severe for those who had relatively low earnings before layoff. For the lowest paid one fourth of the workers, wages on the first job ranged from $8 to $52 a week, compared with $36 to $62 at the mill. On the other hand, both limits of the range for the best-paid one-fourth of the workers fell only $6— from $81-$156 to $75-150. 11 1Carpet-mill earnings on which comparisons are based are gross earnings during the week ending nearest the 15th of the month prior to each worker’s layoff, as shown on the mill’s payroll records. Current earnings were classified as “ same” if they were within 5 percent of mill earnings, “ less” if they were less than 95 percent of mill earnings, and “ more” if more than 105 percent of mill earnings. 2 Excludes 2 workers who did not furnish a useable earnings comparison and 3 who did not report years of school completed. N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. Wage Levels on Post-Layoff Jobs The overall income position of the former carpet workers is depicted more fully in table 10, which provides two measures of carpet-mill T able 10. P re- and P ost-L ayoff W age L evels of D isplaced Caepet-M ill W orkers, A pril 1963 Survey Number of workers Type of wage indicator Gross W ages P er W orker Per W eek E mployed Carpet mill, week ending nearest 15th of month be fore 1960-62 layoff 1_____________________________ First job after layoff _ ___________________________ First substantial2 job after layoff---------------------------Most recent job, as of April 1963___________________ All jobs, layoff to April 1963_______________________ A verage Gross W ages P er E lapsed W eek Carpet mill, 52 weeks before 1960-62 layoff 18_______ All jobs, layoff to April 1963 4______________________ Total interviewed Gross weekly wages Reporting earnings Mean Median Range First quartile Third quartile 160 138 124 138 138 160 135 123 135 135 $73.75 65.19 70.15 67.24 68.35 $70 65 65 65 66 $36-$156 8-150 30-150 6-170 18-136 $62 52 54 52 54 $81 75 80 78 77 160 138 160 135 60.53 45.52 62 40 5-97 2-132 51 24 72 58 1 From personnel records of the carpet mill surveyed. 5 Gross annual earnings divided by 52. Excludes an unknown amount of additional earnings by 8.8 percent of the interviewed workers who re ported some income from jobs outside that mill during the year prior to their carpet-mill layoff and vacation pay for an average of 1.7 weeks during the last 52 weeks at the carpet mill. 4 Excludes any vacation pay that may have been received—probably no substantial amount. Wage levels improved as some workers who at first took part-time or temporary employment found substantial jobs. Wages on the first sub stantial job after layoff were only 5 percent less than wages at the carpet mill— $70.15 and $73.75, respectively. Indeed, the highest one- 2 A job providing continuous, full-time employment for 3 months or mo re. 14 quarter of the wages on such continuing full time jobs (obtained by 124 of the 160 workers, as previously mentioned) were almost identical with those at the mill. The most pronounced improvement, however, occurred among the lowest paid one-fourth of the workers; none of these earned less than $30 a week on his first substantial job. By April 1963, however, 55 percent of the workers were no longer employed at their first jobs, whether they had been substantial or not, as indicated in the preceding section. Reflect ing these further shifts, the better wages rose, but the poorer wages did not— and even fell in some cases. The $78 floor for the highest paid one-quarter of the workers was only $3 a week below their corresponding carpet-mill wage, and the highest individual wage was $14 a week above the highest reported by the carpet mill. The lowest wage, on the other hand, was only $6, compared with $36 at the mill, and the top demarcation line of the lowest-paid one-quarter was still $10 below the corresponding prelayoff wage. In short, the current situation of the lowest paid workers was no better than it had been when they got their first job after they were laid off. Combining all of the jobs held by each worker after layoff compresses the range of average earnings, in comparison with the other meas ures of post-layoff earnings. In comparison with wages in the carpet mill, however, both extremes of the range were about $20 lower. The lowest average individual earnings per week of post-layoff employment were only half as much as the lowest earnings before layoff ($18 vs. $36) and the highest were similarly reduced. The comparative ranges for the middle half of the workers were $54-$77 for all post-layoff jobs and $62-$81 for the carpetmill jobs, again demonstrating that the workers who had earned more at the mill fared better after layoff. The average wage for the 138 workers who had had any employment following layoff was $68.34, or about 7 percent below the average just before layoff for the whole group of 160 interviewed workers. Age and Sex Differentials Average earnings, like the proportions of workers whose individual earnings after layoff were more or less than in the carpet mill, varied in relation to the workers’ age, sex, and educa tion. Men had much higher post-layoff earn ings than women in every age category, and men as a group earned about 40 percent more, whether on their first, most recent job, or on all post-layoff jobs combined. (See table 11.) The older workers of both sexes generally had lower earnings on post-layoff jobs; for example, the average for all such jobs was $72.30 for those under age 39, $68.70 for those in the 39-54 group, and $56.80 for those over age 54. T able 11. A ge D ifferences in P ost-L ayoff W age L evels of D isplaced Carpet-M ill W orkers, by S ex , A pril 1963 S urvey Gross wages per worker per week employed Sex and age group Most All recent First jobs, job as layoff job after of April to April 1963 1963 layoff Wages on most recent job as percent of wages on— First job All post layoff jobs Number of workers repre sented $65.20 $67.20 $68.30 103 98 1135 Men______________ $69.70 50.70 Women___________ 65.70 19 to 38 years_____ Men__________ 67.70 Women_______ 55.00 39 to 54 years_____ 65.30 Men__________ 73.00 50.00 Women ______ 55 to 69 years_____ 58.40 Men__________ 60.20 Women_______ 46.50 $72.10 51.90 73.50 75.60 62.30 66.80 73.70 50.90 53.50 56.80 32.00 $73.50 51.10 72.30 74.90 57.80 68.70 75.90 50.50 56.80 59.80 38.00 103 102 112 112 113 102 101 102 92 94 69 98 102 102 101 108 97 97 101 94 95 84 103 32 i 38-39 i 32-33 6 i 81-82 i 57-58 24 15 13 2 All ages____ 1 Excludes 3 of the 138 reemployed workers who did not provide useable earnings information for all jobs held after layoff. Data of first job relate to 32 males in age group 19-38, and 58 males in age group 39-54. Data on other jobs relate to S3 males in age group 19-38, and 57 males in age group 39-54. However, on the first jobs after layoff, aver age earnings were virtually indistinguishable between the youngest and the middle groups of workers, reflecting the contrasting positions of the youngest men and women, with the young men earning less, and the young women more, than their seniors. Men in the middle age group might be presumed to have acquired more skill during their longer experience, and perhaps this gave them a wage advantage over the younger men. However, it will be recalled, they found jobs less quickly and experienced more unemployment than the younger group, and other studies have shown older men some 15 what more reluctant to accept— and employers somewhat more reluctant to offer— lower wages than they were earning on a job from which they were laid off.15 The probable explanation for the different age-earnings relationship among women goes in another direction. Among the married women, the middle-aged were more likely than the younger to have passed the most timeconsuming stage of child rearing and conse quently to have developed a stronger attach ment to the labor force as their teen-age chil dren began to command a larger share of the family’s budget. In addition, the older women were more likely to have an aged dependent in the household. Conversely, the younger women’s higher opportunity cost of returning to work may have kept them unemployed or out of the labor force until they were able to find a job that paid more than the middle-aged women would accept. Finally, comparatively more of the younger women were married and thus presumably more dependent on a husband’s income. The young women forged further ahead on subsequent jobs, and the young men had out stripped their seniors on their most recent jobs. The youngest men and women had the most substantial increase (12 percent for the 19-38 group) in wages from their first to their most recent jobs, and the earnings of the oldest group declined by 8 percent. This pattern was most dramatic in the case of men. Whereas the first-job earnings of the youngest men aver aged $5 below those of the 39- to 54-year-old men, the youngest men were earning $2 a week more in their latest jobs. Among the women, the youngest already had the highest earnings, as indicated previously, and they showed larger improvements. Thus, the market value of younger workers apparently improved while that of their seniors was declining. Employers in the area may have found that extensive skill and experience in carpet-mill work had limited value in other employments. Furthermore, the youngest workers may have been more adapt able than the middle-age, and especially the oldest. 15 The Older American W orker—A ge Discrimination in Em~ ployment Research Materials (U.S. Department o f Labor, June 1965), p. 13. 16 With respect to earnings over the entire period subsequent to layoff— including the first job, the most recent job, as well as any interven ing jobs— the age pattern was more distinct than the sex differentials. For women, the over all average was slightly less than earnings of the most recent job, whereas for men it was slightly more. Among the women, this reflected chiefly the already mentioned improvement on the latest job among the youngest age group, whose latest job earnings exceeded their overall average by 8 percent. The middle aged women’s earnings were about the same on their latest job as their average on all jobs, and the oldest were earning only 85 percent as much on their latest job as they had averaged throughout the layoff period. The same pattern was charac teristic of the men, but at a lower level, reflect ing the deteriorating position of the older men on their latest job. Some of the foregoing age-sex differentials are undoubtedly associated with differences in the educational attainments of the several cate gories of workers. As has been indicated, the older workers tended to have least schooling, and the women’s educational level was lower than the men’s. And average weekly earnings on post-layoff jobs, by whatever measure, pro gressed from low to high in concert with rising educational levels. Considering all post-layoff jobs together, the men’s average earnings ranged from $65 a week for the least educated to $77.60 for those with 12 years or more o f T able 12. E ducational D ifferences in P ost-L ayoff W age L evels of D isplaced Carpet-M ill W orkers, by Sex , A pril 1963 S urvey Gross wages per worker per week employed Sex and years of school completed First substan tial jo b 1 Most All jobs, recent job layoff as of to April April 1963 1963 Number of workers reporting— Substan tial job Any post layoff job $70.20 $66.40 $68.30 123 135 Men................ 74.50 72.60 75.40 100 104 7 years or less__ 8 years_________ 9 to 11 years___ 12 years and more Not reported----- 68.40 74.90 75.30 76.90 63.80 66.60 78.10 78.90 66.30 65.00 74.00 75.60 77.60 61.30 16 25 33 23 3 18 26 34 23 3 Women______ 49.20 51.40 50.40 23 31 47.20 51.60 47.40 47.00 45.60 48.40 54.90 58.70 46.40 49.50 52.40 54.70 4 10 7 2 5 13 10 3 Both sexes— 7 years or less— 8 years................ 9 to 11 years___ 12 years and over 1A job providing continuous, full-time employment for 3 months or more schooling. (See table 12.) The comparable range for the women was $46.40 to $54.70; the best educated women earned considerably less than the least educated men. Among both men and women, the wages of the least educated had deteriorated, being lower on their most recent than on their first substantial job, while those who had more than 8 years of schooling had improved their earnings, with the women scor ing the largest gains. Average Income After Layoff Since the interviewed carpet-mill workers were unemployed for 45 percent of the elapsed time from layoff to April 1963, and about 13 percent of their last year of employment at the carpet mill, it seems desirable to heed the re mark that “ Workers live by the year” by con sidering income per elapsed week rather than per week of employment. During the year before layoff, time not worked reduced the average pay of the 160 interviewed workers from $73.75 per working week to $60.53 per elapsed week (table 10). After layoff from the carpet mill, even the 135 reemployed workers had experienced so much unemployment that their wage incomes were reduced from $68.35 per week of employment to only $45.52 per elapsed week between layoff and April 1963. The combined effect of lower wages on the job and the drastically reduced number of working weeks was, therefore, to cut the aver age weekly wage income after layoff by nearly 30 percent. The effect of lost time was especially severe for those who earned relatively little even when employed. One worker’s average wage income between layoff and April 1963 amounted to only $2 a week. Whereas the lowest paid one-fourth of the reemployed workers earned up to $54 per week of employment, the comparable figure was only $24 per elapsed week— less than half of the corresponding amount during the year prior to the carpet mill layoff. The drastic reductions in wage income, just described, were those suffered by the more fortunate workers who did succeed in obtaining some employment after being laid off from the carpet mill. Excluded were 22 less fortunate workers who had no post-lay off wage income at all. Unemployment Benefits Nearly all of the laid-off carpet-mill workers were eligible for unemployment benefits. These were available, of course, only to jobseekers in weeks when they had no earnings and only after a waiting period following loss of the job at the carpet mill or a subsequent job. Altogether, 147 of the 160 interviewed workers received benefits—for 25.7 weeks, on the average— at some time between layoff from the carpet mill and the April 1963 interviews. Only 144 of the beneficiaries reported the amount received; their average benefit was $38.27. (See table 13.) Benefits were received in only 5 of every 8 weeks of unemployment, on the average. Workers with comparatively short-term unem ployment fared better on this score, of course, for large percentages of those who were job less for long periods exhausted their benefit rights, even though the State in which they had been employed temporarily extended benefits T able 13. D isplaced Carpet-M ill W orkers’ P ost-L ayoff E xperience w ith U nemployment I nsurance B enefits , A pril 1963 Survey Weeks of Unemployment,1 of carpet-mill layoff to April 1963 Number of workers represented_______ Number of workers interviewed 160 Average number of weeks of— Benefit weeks as percent of unemployed weeks Number of workers exhausting benefit rights Average weekly benefit amount 144 U nemployment U.I. benefits 146 147 146 2 56 56 $38.27 2 4 12 11 17 9 1 $39.62 39.28 37.73 37.35 37.96 36.50 38.00 All durations___________________ 160 41 26 63 Less than 1 week ____________________ 2 but less than 21 weeks_______________ 22 but less than 27 weeks______________ 28 but less than 42 weeks______________ 43 but less than 53 weeks______________ 56 but less than 78 weeks______________ 82 but less than 130 weeks____________ 13 33 22 30 20 29 12 1 11 24 34 47 64 102 9 21 28 35 36 35 26 83 87 82 73 56 34 N ot reported _ ________ 1Discrete intervals indicate no observation in the omitted range. 8Excludes 7 workers who reported they did not qualify for benefits at the time of layoff for the following reasons: Not unemployed long enough (2); self-employed (1); no benefit rights (1); disability (1); and maternity (1). 17 during the 1961-62 recession. The surprisingly low rates of exhaustion among those unem ployed for over three-fourths of a year may be attributable to their establishing a new benefit year during recurrent period of employment which separated several spells of unemploy ment. Nevertheless, two of every five beneficaries did exhaust their benefit rights. They were, however, fortunate to have been employed in a State where benefit amounts are comparatively liberal. The average benefit ex ceeded 50 percent of the average wage in the carpet mill. As is common under State unem ployment insurance laws, the benefit formula favored the lower wage workers. The uni formity of the average benefit among the several classes of beneficiaries, however, may also indicate a substantial concentration at the maximum benefit level. For the whole group of 160 interviewed workers, the median weekly income obtained from the combination of unemployment benefits and wages amounted to $48 per elapsed week from layoff to April 1963. This was equivalent to 68 percent of median carpet-mill earnings during the month just prior to layoff ($70) and to 77 percent of median carpet-mill earn ings during the year prior to layoff ($62). For the least fortunate one-quarter of the group (including the 22 workers who obtained no post-layoff employment) the combined weekly income was $28 or less per week or 55 percent of the lowest quartile amount obtained from wages alone during the year before layoff ($51). For the most fortunate one-fourth, the combined benefit and wage income was $66 or more; that is, 92 percent of the top quartile carpet-mill wages per elapsed week during the year before layoff ($72). Workers’ Adjustments to Their Post-Layoff Situations In view of the severe income loss which was associated with their layoff, the former carpetmill workers’ adjustments to reduced circum stances depended importantly on certain ele ments of their previous economic position. Their assets and some existing supplements to income were to provide a substantial cushion against the financial effects of the layoff on the family’s budget. Economic Position Prior to Layoff Altogether, two-thirds of the group inter viewed (106 of 160) stated that they had re ceived “ other money” besides the carpet-mill paychecks during the last year of their em ployment in the mill. Income from supplemental sources contrib uted substantially toward meeting the family living expenses even prior to layoff. Half of the group had other sources of income which covered 20 percent or more of their living ex penses (i.e., 80 percent or less covered by their own wages) and nearly one-fourth met half or more of their current expenses from other sources of income. On the other hand, twofifths of the group relied on their individual carpet-mill paychecks to cover more than 95 18 percent of the living expenses of themselves and/or their families as shown below. Aside from the displaced workers’ own wages, by far the most important source of income during their last year of employment at the mill had been the wages of a wife or husband, reported by half the workers (table T able 14. Sources of M oney I ncome Supplements to W ages of D isplaced Carpet-M ill W orkers D uring Y ear B efore L ayoff, A pril 1963 Survey Source of income All workers interviewed2 _________________ Wages of other family members____ _____________ Spouse_____________________ _ ____________ Children _ _________________ _____ _________ Property income _________ ________ _______ _____ Rents________________________ ___________ Dividends____________ ____ ____ ________ _____ Farm Income______________ ______________ Social insurance benefits__________________________ Pensions___________________________________ Respondent’s . _ ___________ ____________ Others in family________________________ Not specified. _______ _______________ Unemployment benefits _____________________ Others in family_________________________ Not specified_____ _____________ _______ Disability benefits__________________________ Respondent’s __________________________ Others in family_________________________ Not stated________________ ___________ Welfare payments_____________________ _________ All o t h e r ______________________ ______________ Number Percent of workers1 160 100 85 80 5 23 18 4 1 20 7 2 4 1 7 2 5 6 2 3 1 1 11 53 50 3 14 11 2 1 12 4 1 2 1 4 1 3 4 1 2 1 1 7 1Some respondents are counted more than once since they reported supplemental income from more than one source. 2 Includes those who reported no supplemental income. 14). Some of the spouses may not have earned much, but 50 of the carpet workers (36.5 per cent of the 137 workers who were married) stated that their wives/husbands were “ usually employed” during the year before they, them selves, were laid off. Next in importance as a source of supple mental income was the ownership of incomeyielding assets, noted by one-seventh of the carpet-mill workers. This fraction actually understates the true value to the workers of property ownership because it does not include the implicit income enjoyed from ownership of their own homes, and the workers did not re gard interest on savings accounts as money income. Informal evidence collected during the study continually stressed the frugality of local residents, and the importance to them of ac cumulating savings accounts. When faced with the loss of wages, many of those workers not only had some continuing property incomes but also could meet part of their current ex penses by borrowing on or disposing of some of these assets. A high proportion of these workers had an asset in home ownership. In the year prior to layoff, nearly three-fifths (92 of 160) of the carpet-mill workers had owned their own homes— a remarkably high rate for individuals whose own earnings averaged only about $3,150 a year. Of course, home ownership was facil itated by multiple wage earnings and by income from property, and probably a majority of the homes were mortgaged. However, home owner ship not only continued to provide the workers with secure shelter, but also enabled them per haps to defer some expenses or even to borrow money more easily. Had they not been able to sustain the required mortgage payments they might have been evicted; but, as will be seen, this did not occur. At the same time, the workers’ important economic stake in the ownership of the homes they occupied helped to make them disinclined to seek employment outside the local area. The only other source o f supplemental income mentioned with much frequency was social security benefits from both the State and Federal governments. Subject to some duplica tion, one-eighth of those interviewed cited pen sions,10 unemployment benefits, and disability benefits as a means of meeting family living ex penses, even before they were laid off. Most of these benefits were being received by other members of the family, rather than by the carpet-mill workers themselves. Major Adjustments to Loss of Wage Income In view of the carpet workers’ large contri butions to family living expenses, unemploy ment benefits were of course a vital means of adjusting to reduced income during their often prolonged search for new jobs. In addition, the wages of other family members assumed greater importance, and savings were fre quently withdrawn. A variety of other means of meeting expenses were also used, although infrequently. Appropriate share o f living expenses covered by workers’ earnings1 All interviewed w o r k e r s _____________ Less than 30 p e r c e n t _______________________ 30 percent to 45 p e rc e n t ____________________ 50 percent __________________________________ 60 percent to 70 p e rc e n t -----------------------------75 percent __________________________________ 80 percent __________________________________ 85 percent to 95 p e rc e n t-----------------------------More than 95 p e rc e n t_______________________ Not sp ecified ________________________________ Workers reporting Number Percent 160 4 9 24 13 17 12 13 67 1 100 2 6 15 8 11 7 8 42 1 1 Discrete intervals indicate no observation in the omitted range. Social Security Benefits. Unemployment in surance benefits far outranked any other meth od of meeting the decrease in wage income. Although unemployment benefits were discussed in the preceding section of this report, their frequency is repeated in table 15 to show how crucial a role they played in tiding the carpet workers’ families over the post-layoff period. Not only the former carpet-mill workers but also their wives and husbands received unem ployment benefits in 18 cases. This fact is related to the prevalence of multiple-earner families and to the depressed economic condi tions in the area. Eighteen of the laid-off workers also received disability benefits on their own behalf and five reported that another member o f the family 18 Although most o f the pensions enumerated in both tables 14, and 15 were old-age and survivor benefits under the Federal program and were received on the account o f another member o f the family, some o f the schedules were not entirely definitive as to what was meant by “ social security’* or “ pensions” . A n occa sional nongovernment pension may have been included. 19 did so. Comparison with the data in table 14 indicates that disability benefits were received much more frequently by the workers studied in the period after layoff than in the preceding year. Pensions also furnished aid in 5 cases— fewer than in the prelayoff period. T able 15. M ethods op M eeting P ost-L ayoff L iving E xpenses U sed by D isplaced Carpet-M ill W orkers, A pril 1963 Survey Method of meeting expenses All workers interviewed 2__________________ Social insurance benefits: Unemployment benefits: Respondent's__________________________ Others in family_________________________ Disability benefits: Respondent’s___________________________ Others in family_________ _______________ Pensions__________________ _______________ Wages of other family members: Spouse______________________________________ Children____________________________________ Disposal of assets: Savings withdrawal__________________________ Real estate sold_____________________________ Life insurance cashed_______________________ Stocks sold__________________________________ Savings bonds cashed________________ ______ _ Borrowing money: Nonrelatives as lenders_______________________ Relatives as lenders__________________________ Gifts: Surplus fo o d 8__________________ ___________ Welfare payments________ ________________ Miscellaneous: Living quarters shared4______________________ Property income__________ _____ ____________ All other__________________ _ ______ ________ Workers reporting each method 1 Number Percent 160 100 147 18 92 11 18 5 5 11 3 3 100 9 62 6 58 3 2 1 1 36 2 1 1 1 12 8 7 5 15 9 9 6 7 2 18 4 1 11 1Numbers and percentages subject to duplication because of use of more than one method by individual respondents. 2Some respondents are counted more than once since they made more than one kind of financial adjustment. 8Under Federal food stamp plan. Used as part of welfare relief in the 9 cases which are listed on the next line. 4Additional to the sharing of living quarters prior to carpet mill layoff. Wages of Other Family Members. Second only to unemployment benefits in frequency, the wages of a wife or husband were reported as a resource for meeting living expenses by 100 carpet-mill workers, or nearly three-fourths of these married persons in the group interviewed. The increased numbers of spouses of the laid-off workers who sought employment illustrate the operation of what has been called the “ addi tional worker theory” — namely, that decreased demand for labor will increase the supply. In the situation studied, the confirmation of that theory was quite conclusive because identical individuals and their families were studied for periods before and after a major layoff (de crease in labor demand). Whereas 80 of the carpet workers’ wives or husbands had con 20 tributed earnings toward family living expenses before the layoff, 100 had done so in the post layoff period. It did not follow that the addi tional workers would all obtain full-time or any employment. Indeed, in the year before the carpet-mill workers were laid off, only 50 of the 80 spouses with earnings were “ usually em ployed.” In the post-layoff period, 18 of the 100 wives/husbands with earnings had received un employment benefits. Thus, the only question is whether the true increase in the labor force of second workers incident to the carpet-mill layoffs was from 50 to 82 or from 80 to 100. The number of children whose earnings con tributed to meeting living expenses was also greater after the carpet-mill workers were laid off. However, even in the post-layoff period, only 9 percent of the former carpet-mill workers had children working. Disposal of Assets The third most frequent method used to ad just to the layoff situation was to withdraw past savings, and 58 of the interviewed workers had done so at some time between losing their carpet-mill jobs and April 1968. The frequent availability of this source of ready funds attests to the frugality of the carpet-mill workers, as already mentioned. Further evidence of this frugality is the fact that one-fourth of those who had withdrawn their savings after layoff (15 of 58) had restored their previous savings balances by April 1963, since there were net withdrawals at the time of interview by only 43 of these interviewed. (See table 16.) Only 3 had withdrawn all of their pre-layoff savings and only 17 had let their savings balances fall below 45 percent of the pre-layoff amount.17 Apart from withdrawing savings, the laidoff carpet-mill workers very seldom disposed of assets to meet living expenses. Although 18 of the interviewed group had received income from ownership of rental property before layoff and only 2 continued to obtain substantial income from rents, only 3 had sold real estate. These 17 Exact accuracy is not claimed for these findings, since under standably, savings bank books were not inspected. However, the broad findings were developed during extensive interviews with cooperative respondents and, moreover, are consistent with general information collected in the local area regarding the workers* savings habits. Table 16. W ithdrawal of Savings by D isplaced Carpet-M ill W orkers F ollowing L ayoff, B y Size of N et R eduction, A pril 1963 Survey Percent of workers Status of Savings Number of workers Total With some with drawals With net with drawals Total ............................. 160 100 No savings w ithdraw n._____ Some savings withdrawn___ Balance restored b y ____ April 1963 1.................... Balance not restored by April 1963____________ Net reduction in savings account between date of carpet-mill layoff and April 1/63: 100 percent____________ _____ 75 to 99 percent_____________ 55 to 74 percent_____________ 45 to 54 percent_____________ 25 to 44 percent_____________ 1 to 24 percent______________ 102 58 64 36 100 15 9 26 43 27 74 100 3 10 1 12 9 8 2 6 1 7 6 5 5 17 2 21 16 14 7 23 2 28 21 19 1 Workers who reported some savings withdrawn to meet living expenses after carpet-mill layoff but not reporting any net withdrawal of savings at time of interview, April 1963. N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. facts appear to illustrate the fall in both rents and the saleable value of real estate which occurs in an area which becomes severely de pressed. Infrequently Used Methods of Post-Layoff Adjustment In view of the sharp decline in wage in comes which followed their layoffs, the carpetmill workers’ relatively infrequent resort to the more extreme measures of adjustment to straightened circumstances is quite noteworthy. Less than two-fifths of them disposed of any assets, as just mentioned, and nearly all of those who withdrew savings still had reserves. In fact, in response to a separate question, nearly two-thirds of the workers interviewed reported that their living expenses had been entirely covered by unemployment benefits plus the wages of themselves and other members of their families. Particularly notable is the infrequent resort to borrowing or charitable relief. About oneeighth of the laid-off carpet-mill workers had borrowed money to meet current expenses, and only 8 had borrowed money from anyone except persons related to them. Although 15 workers had received government-provided surplus food, part of these benefits had been received in dependently of welfare relief. As for welfare relief itself, only 9 of the 160 workers had been thrown back on such public charity. This study did not attempt to assess the adequacy of stand ards of the local welfare system and thus no statement can be made as to whether relief was granted under relatively generous or harsh conditions. Nevertheless, the fact that only 1 in 18 of the laid-off carpet mill workers had been “ on welfare” at any time prior to inter view indicates that they had by no means become a group of paupers. Finally, it is well recognized that “ doubling up” of living quarters is a reliable indicator of low or declining levels of living. Yet only 7 of the displaced carpet-mill workers had resorted to this method of coping with severely inade quate income. Since no survey of housing con ditions was included in this study, no judgment is expressed as to whether or not the carpetmill workers were already housed in sub standard living quarters before they were laid off. It does not appear, however, that crowding was frequently increased after layoff. Additional data on the ownership of homes, farms, and businesses tend to support the evidence that the layoffs of 1960-62 had not led to widespread poverty— at least up to the time of interview in April 1963. The former carpetmill workers did not lose the homes they had owned prior to layoff. On the contrary, 97 of them owned the houses they occupied in April 1963 as compared with 92 during the year before they lost their carpet-mill jobs. Of the 14 workers who had owned any part of a farm or business enterprise, either before or after layoff, only 1 lost each ownership after lay off. In no case, among the persons interviewed, did a former carpet-mill worker attempt to meet the problem of unemployment by embark ing on a farm or business enterprise. Neither was there any evidence that former carpet-mill workers attempted to meet the problem of the loss of a usual job by obtaining more than one substitute job. On the contrary, whereas 14 persons had worked on a second job during the year before layoff, only 7 of them had done so at any time after layoff. The depressed state of general economic conditions in the local area did not encourage either the launching of new enterprises or “ moonlighting.” 21 Elsewhere in this report, comment is made on the fact that the former carpet-mill workers, while often moving between different em ployers, occupations, and industries, had not often sought employment outside the local area as a method of adjusting themselves to their post-layoff situation. Furthermore, the fact that the weekly earnings on the new job they did obtain averaged within 8 percent of their previous carpet-mill earnings suggests that these former carpet-mill workers were under no great pressure to work for sharply reduced wages. 22 The prolonged unemployment which cus tomarily followed the layoffs of 1960-62, un doubtedly led to severe economic distress in some cases. Nevertheless, the infrequent use of the more extreme methods of adjusting to the layoffs suggests that, in combination, unemploy ment benefits, continued employment of the workers, spouses, and the frugality and in dependence of the workers themselves cushioned the shock of the layoffs remarkably well, and prevented widespread, acute economic distress. Appendix A. Methodology As explained in the Background section of this report, the 794 workers within the scope of the study had been laid off by the carpet mill at various times between the middle of 1960 and the middle of 1962. Timing of the layoffs is given in table A - l. The 794 constituted the mill’s reemployment roster as of June 30, 1962, which listed all employees laid off and not re called in the preceding 2-year period who had preferential hiring rights under the mill’s agreement with the Textile Workers Union of America. For each person on the roster, the company provided the name, address, marital status, social security number, sex, date of birth, date of first hiring and date of termination, and, for both the first and last jobs, occupational title, and divisional and departmental identifica tion. The company also coded each job title into 1 of 15 grades of skill. This information, classified by sex, age, and skill level o f the last job, was used as a control in selecting a sample of the laid-off workers to be interviewed. The population of 794 was dis tributed into 12 sampling cells made up o f 3 age groups (19 to 38, 39 to 54, and 55 to 69) and 3 skill groups (as measured by earnings) for each sex. The sample of 160 for interview was obtained by a random drawing, after shuffling, of one-fifth of the names in each cell. Additional names were drawn (and interviews subsequently conducted) to provide substitutes for any unusable schedules and to supplement, should it be necessary, the number of observa tions from the smaller cells (e.g., low-age, highskill women) .18 The interview schedule was developed by the director of the study after consultation with representatives of the company, the union, and State and local officials of the State Employ 18 The data in this report are based exclusively on the balanced 20-percent sample o f the population. ment Service, as well as with officials of the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Bureau of the Budget who subsequently gave it formal clearance. All interviewing was completed during April 1963, so that the observations would have an approximately uniform time reference. That month was chosen as a period which would not encompass an unduly long interval from the time of the first layoffs in the summer of 1960 and yet be sufficiently removed from the last layoffs in the late spring of 1962 to permit observation of more than the initial readjust ments by the laid-off workers. The interviews were conducted in the homes of the selected workers by a part-time staff of 13 trained interviewers. Ten of the inter viewers were drawn from the staff o f the local office of the State Employment Service who were employed on this work during evenings and on weekends. After interviews were completed, the com pany compiled and furnished, for each person in the interview sample, the gross earnings from employment at the mill (a) during the week ending nearest the 15th day of the month prior to date of termination and (b) during the 12 months preceding that date. T able A - l . T im ing op the 1960-62 L ayoffs of P roduction W orkers at the S urveyed Carpet M ill Workers laid off Time of layoff Total _ _ ___________________________ 1960: 3d quarter____________________ ______________ 4th quarter_________________________________ 1961: 1st quarter__________________________________ 2d quarter__________________________________ 3d quarter_________________ ______ ________ 4th quarter__________________________ _______ 1962: 1st quarter.^ ---------------------------------------------2d quarter__________________________________ Number Percent 794 100 17 136 2 17 168 35 118 31 21 4 15 4 237 52 30 6 Source: Reemployment roster of the surveyed carpet mill, as of June 30, 1962. 23 Other information utilized in the study in cluded data provided by the company on its average employment, labor turnover, and pro duction at the mill; U.S. shipment of carpets, provided by the American Carpet Institute; and local unemployment rates and background in formation from the local office of the Employ ment Service. All of the data presented in this report were processed and analyzed at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Although the interview sample consists of 20 24 percent of the population from which it was drawn and was selected to insure full repre sentation of certain characteristics that tend to be associated with differentiations in employ ment experience, many of the resulting statis tics necessarily are based on a small number of observations. Like all such statistics, the sample data are strictly accurate only when used to describe the group studied and are subject to relatively large amounts of error if used as estimates for the population represented by the study group. Appendix B. Worker Interview Schedule ------ Layoff Survey Page 1 Budget Bureau NO.____________________ *Serial_ Approval Expires______________________ WORKER INTERVIEW SURVEY (Revised) I. Identification and Postcard Information ♦NAME____________________________________________ *SE X _______ ♦MARITAL____ ♦ORIGINAL ADDRESS__________________________________________________ *TE L_____ CURRENT A D D R E SS_________________________________________________ T E L ____ INTERVIEW: TIME DAY DATE SCHEDULED BY INTERVIEWER REM ARKS___________________________________________________________________________ RESCHEDULE: TIME DAY DATE SCHEDULED BY INTERVIEWER REM ARKS___________________________________________________________________________ UNABLE TO SCHEDULE OR RESCHEDULE_________________________ REASON_________________________________________________________________________ CONFIRMED CALLBACKS (1) TIME DAY DATE SCHEDULED BY INTERVIEWER REASON___________________________________________________________________________ 2 ( ) __________ TIME ________ DAY __________ _____________________________________________ DATE SCHEDULED BY INTERVIEWER REASON ♦Prior to interview, enter these items, First line on p. 2 and line 1, col. (b) on p. 3 25 Page 2a Instructions for Opening of Interview If “ Postcard Return” is checked “ Yes” on page 2: A. All the information received from the respondent on the postcard will be entered prior to the interview. B. Following is a Sample Statement of the Interviewer in such cases: PROFESSOR TOLLES ASKS ME TO THANK YOU FOR REPLYING TO THE LETTER HE MAILED YOU ON FEBRUARY 28. THAT WAS MORE THAN A MONTH AGO. NOW HE WANTS TO BE SURE THE ANSWERS YOU SENT HIM ARE UP TO DATE. LET’S CHECK OVER THE ANSWERS ON THE POSTCARD YOU RETURNED TO HIM. Hand respondent blank copy of the double postcard form. (Be Sure to retrieve the postcard before the end of the interview) As the question are repeated, the interviewer will circle on page 2 each item which is found to have been correctly reported. Draw a line through each item which was missing or which needs to be amended and enter the new or revised information, but do not circle the new or revised answers. If “ Postcard Return” is checked “ No” on page 2: A. Remainder of page 2 will be blank and items are to be filled in at the beginning of the inter view. B. Sample Statement: PROFESSOR TOLLES DOES NOT HAVE ANY RECORD OF A REPLY FROM YOU TO THE LETTER HE MAILED YOU ON FEBRUARY 28. HE HAS ASKED ME TO SEE YOU PERSONALLY, SO AS TO COMPLETE HIS RECORDS. LET’S CHECK OVER THE QUESTIONS ON THE POSTCARD HE SENT YOU. (Show the respondent the blank card) 26 Page 2 *Serial ♦Postcard Return: YES__________ NO___________ 1. Are you working for pay at the present time? YES, FULL-TIME P A R T -T IM E ____ N O ______________ 2. If you DO NOT have a paid job, are you: UNABLE TO WORK (Sick or disabled) ?__ DOING HOUSEWORK in your own home?— GOING TO SCHOOL?____________________ R E T IR E D ?______________________________ ACTIVELY LOOKIN FOR WORK?_______ IF you DO have a paid job at present: 3. Do you earn more or less each week than you usually earned when you worked a t ------ ? NOW EARN MORE_____ EARN LESS___________ ABOUT THE SAME____ 4. How many weeks have you worked on your present job? WEEKS Please answer the following questions whether you now have a paid job or not: 5. How many weeks did you have a paid job during each of the years, 1960 to the present time (induing your former job a t ------ ? 1960, WEEKS 1961, WEEKS 1962, WEEKS 1963, So far, WEEKS 6. If a course were available to retrain you for another job, with temporary pay, would you be interested? (NOTE: This is NOT an offer of any training course.) Y E S ________ N O __________ DON’T KNOW ♦Prior to interview, record serial number on this and every sheet used. 27 Page 3a Serial CODE SYMBOLS Column ( c ) — Status______ Column (j) First source o f information, leading to each job. (If “ F” or “ P” in col. ( c ) ) . Use only ONE symbol. Column (k) Reason for termination of the job (if “ F” or “ P” in col, ( c ) )._________ F— Full-time employment RP— Relatives or friends working in the plant T— Temporary job P— Part-time employment RN—Relatives or friends NOT in the plant Q— Quit (voluntary) S— Self-employed DP— Direct application at the L— Laid off plant U— Unable to work RE—Recall, previous employer 0 — Other reason for termination (specify h e r e ): H— Housework, own home ES— Employment Service (SES) E— Education (School) N— Newspaper or Radio R— Retired LU—Labor union LW— Looking for work (Unemployed) PA— Private employment Agency 0 — Other (specify and explain h e r e ): 0 — Other job lead (specify here): 28 Page 3b Serial II. Worker History since Layoff 7. You were laid off from th e ------ mill in *_____ mo. *_____yr. Is that right? NO YES Now we want to get a more complete record of just what happened to you after you were laid off. First about your form er------ j o b --------How many hours a week did you usually work a t -------(Enter (g) & “ F” or “ P ” under ( c ) ) . * (a) (b) i Beginning of Period End of Period 0 d Mo.-Yr. Mo.-Yr. . xxxxx p e r 1 * (C) S t a t u s (d) (e) (f) Type of Industry Kind of Work (Job Title) Usual Gross Weekly Earnings Carpet Mfg. (g ) (h) (i) a) Usual Job Hours Location Per of Work Travel Infor Week City-State Miles mation xxxxxxxxxx XXX (k) Rea son for End XXX 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. (Continue the record on any further sheets as needed.) OTHER SHEETS? ♦Prior to interview, enter layoff date on first line to text and on numbered line 1, col. ( c ) . Period shown on line 1 refers to t h e ------ jobs, fill in, during inter view, the blank spaces under columns ( c ) , ( f ) , ( g ) , and (i ) . Lines 2ff are to account for every subsequent change in status (col. ( c ) . ) . Last numbered line as used will represent respondent’s status at time o f interview. 29 Page 4 Serial III. Employment at A. Last 2 years before Designated Layoff— “ Usual” Job 8. You have said how much you usually earned at (7-line 1 col. ( f ) ) (a) WAS YOUR “ USUAL” JOB A T ------ SAY DURING YOUR LAST TWO YEARS THERE— THE SAME JOB AS THE ONE YOU HAD JUST BEFORE YOU WERE LAID OFF? YES N O _____ (b) If “ No” : WHAT WAS YOUR “ USUAL” JOB? JOB TITLE________________________ DEPARTMENT_____________ 9. (a) WAS YOUR “ USUAL” JOB A T ------ ALSO the MOST SKILLED WORK YOU HAVE EVER DONE FOR PAY ANYWHERE SINCE YOU FIRST STARTED TO WORK? Y E S ____ N O _____ (b) If “ No” : WAS THE MOST SKILLED WORK DURING YOUR LIFE DONE ON A JOB A T ------ ? Y E S ____ N O _____ (c) If “ No” under (b) WHAT WAS THE MOST SKILLED JOB YOU HAVE HAD? Product or Service of Employer __________________________________ Kind of Work you did? __________________________________ When that job began? M o._______ Y r ._______ . Ended? Mo. Yr. B. Last Year (52 weeks) before Designated Layoff 10. DURING THE LAST YEAR YOU WERE A T ------: (a) HOW MANY WEEKS DID YOU HAVE SOME WORK FOR PA Y? WEEKS _____ (b) HOW MANY WEEKS WERE YOU LAID OFF WITHOUT ANY PAY? WEEKS ____ (c) DID YOU HAVE ANY FULL WEEKS OF PAID VACATION? Yes__ WEEKS _____ No___ WEEKS XXX WEEKS (Check here if respondent does not remember:______ ) 30 52 Page 5 Serial IV. Most Recent Job After Layoff, Compared with Last Job a t -----Now think of the job you had a t ------ just before you were laid off. Think also of the (job you now have) (last job you have had) I would like your own opinion of those two jobs. 11. WHICH WAS THE MORE SKILLED JOB— YOUR LATEST JOB OR THE JOB YOU HAD AT MOHAWK JUST BE FO RE------ LAID YOU OFF? Recent job required more skill____ Recent job required less skill ____ (Check here if doesn’t know:_______ ) The two jobs required about the same sk ill_____________________________ _____ 12. WHICH JOB DID YOU LIKE THE BEST? CONSIDERING EVERYTHING ABOUT THE WORK WHICH WAS THE BETTER JOB? (is) Recent job (was) Better than------ j o b __________ _____ (is) Recent job (was) Worse than------ j o b __________ _____ The two jobs were about the same to respondent____ 13. There are many things that can make a job a good one or a bad one. The wages you get each week are one thing, but not the only thing. Look at this card, for instance. Here is a list of things that may be better or worse. Let’s consider each thing on this list. You’ve already told me about the wages. We’ll check that off. (a) ARE YOUR RECENT WAGES HIGHER OR LOWER THAN THOSE YOU B e tte r________ ____ GOT ON YOUR LAST JOB A T ------ ? W o r s e ________ ____ About the same Now what about the place where you did your work on each of these jobs? (b) WHICH JOB HAD THE BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS? WAS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE IN THE HEAT OR LIGHT, OR WHETHER YOU COULD WHILE WORKING, OR SUCH THINGS ? Recent better Recent w o rs e ____ About the same 31 Page 6 Serial IV. 13. (continued) How about the way you were told to do the two jobs? On some jobs you’re left pretty free to do the work your own way. On other jobs you have to do it just as you are told. Sometimes you are not told enough about how to do it. (c) WAS THE SUPERVISION ON THE JOB AT THE LAST PLACE YOU WORKED BETTER OR WORSE THAN IT WAS A T ------ ? Recent b etter______ Recent worse _______ About the sam e_____ (d) WAS THE WORK YOU DID MOST RECENTLY MORE INTERESTING WORK FOR YOU THAN THE WORK YOU DID ON YOUR LAST JOB A T -----Recent b etter_______ Recent w o rs e _______ About the sam e_____ Then there is the question of the fairness of an employer in his treatment of you and the other workers. Some employers are very fair to the workers, whether they can do much for them or not. Sometimes a company, or a worker’s foreman, may play favorites or not give the workers as good a break as they could. (e) WHICH EMPLOYER TREATED YOU MORE FAIRLY— YOUR LAST Recent better ________ EMPLOYER O R ------ ? Recent w o rs e ______ About the sam e_____ In some places the people in the shop are more friendly than in other places. (f) DID YOU LIKE THE OTHER WORKERS BETTER AT THE LAST PLACE YOU WORKED THAN A T ------ ? Recent better________ Recent w o rs e ______ About the sam e_____ (g) WHICH JOB GAVE YOU MORE STEADY WORK— YOUR MOST RECENT JOB OR Y O U R ------ JOB? Recent better — _____ Recent worse ________ About the sam e_____ (h) HAVE YOU HAD A BETTER CHANCE TO GET AHEAD (Advancement) ON YOUR MOST RECENT JOB OR ON THE JOB YOU HAD A T ------ ? Recent b etter______ Recent worse ________ About the same 32 Page 7 Serial IV. 13. (continued) Jobs these days carry fringe benefits in addition to the paycheck— things like holidays with pay, paid vacations, higher rates of pay for overtime work, pensions, savings plans and so forth. Think of all such things together. (i) DID YOUR MOST RECENT JOB GIVE YOU BETTER FRINGE BENEFITS THAN YOUR L A S T ------ JOB? Recent better ________ Recent w o rse _______ About the sam e_____ Sometimes you can earn good pay on a job, but only by working longer hours than you want or at bad times of the day for you. (j) DID YOU LIKE THE TIME OF THE WORK SHIFT YOU HAD AND THE NUMBER OF HOURS OF WORK BETTER ON YOUR MOST RECENT JOB THAN THE LAST JOB YOU HAD A T ------ ? Recent better_______ Recent w o rse _______ About the sam e_____ 14. Now let’s look back over the list on that card WHICH OF THOSE THINGS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU THE THING YOU MOST WANT TO KNOW ABOUT ANY JOB? Rank: 1 is what ever is most important. (Worker to select at least 1, 2, 3) WHICH IS THE NEXT MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU? (a) W ages--------------------------------------- --------(b) Physical conditions--------------------- --------(c) Freedom from unnecessary supervision----------------------------- --------Interesting w o rk ------------------------ --------(e) Fairness of your em ployer--------- --------(f) Friendly fellow w ork ers--------------------(g) Steadiness of w o r k --------------------- -------(h ) Chance for advancement--------------------(i) Fringe benefits__________________ _____ (j ) Shift and H ours-------------------------- (d) WHICH IS THE THIRD THING YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT ANY JOB? ARE AN Y OTHER THINGS ON THIS LIST IMPORTANT TO YOU? HOW IMPORTANT? 33 Page 8 Serial V. Living and Working Arrangements, at present and while employed at Professor Tolies wants to report how much th e ------ layoff changed the lives of you workers who lost your jobs. So he needs to know a few things about how you live and work now and how things were with you when you were working at the mill.------ 15. The beginning for everybody is being born in the first place. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? City, or town or County______________ State (if in U .S .A .)_________________ Country (present name, if possible) 16. HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN OR N E A R ---------SAY, WITHIN 20 MILES OF T H E ------ MILL? 17. Years IN ALL THE TIME SINCE YOU BECAME 21 YEARS OLD, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU MOVED? Number (Means “ How many times changed "residence” or the place you slept most of the time?” ) 18. If married (compare page 1, line 1), (a-1 ) HAS YOUR WIFE (OR HUSBAND) MOVED SINCE YOU WERE LAID OFF FROM T H E ------ MILL? (Date shown, p.3. line 1, col. ( b ) ) Yes (a-2) If not married SINCE THE MONTH YOU WERE LAID OFF FROM (date shown, p.3, line 1, col. (b ), HAVE YOU CHANGED THE PLACE WHERE YOU SLEEP MOST OF THE TIME? Yes No (b) If Answer to (a) is “ Yes,” DID YOU MOVE YOUR HOME (residence) MORE THAN 20 MILES AT ANY TIME SINCE YOU WERE LAID OFF F R O k ------ ? Yes No (c) I f answer to (b) is “ Yes,” WHEN WAS IT THAT YOU MOVED YOUR HOME (residence) BY MORE THAN 20 MILES? Month Year 34 Page 9 Serial V. (continued) 19. (a) DO YOU NOW OWN THE PLACE WHERE YOU LIVE? (or, if married the place where your wife (husband) lives) (Means ownership wholly or partly) Yes No (b) If answer to (a) is “ Yes,” IS (OR WAS) THIS PLACE CLOSE ENOUGH TO WHERE YOU WORK (OR DID WORK, MOST RECENTLY) SO THAT YOU CAN (OR COULD) GO FROM YOUR HOME TO YOUR WORK (commute) EVERY D AY? Yes No (c) BEFORE YOUR LAYOFF FR O M ----------, DID YOU THEN OWN YOUR OWN HOME? (Means ownership at any time within 2 years of layoff) Yes No (d) WAS THE PLACE YOU OWNED BEFORE THAT LAYOFF CLOSE ENOUGH TO T H E ------ SO THAT YOU COULD GO TO WORK FROM YOUR HOME (commute) EVERY D AY? Yes No 20. If a person owns a farm or business of his own that may make a difference as to where he lives. (a) DO YOU OR YOUR WIFE (HUSBAND) NOW OWN A FARM OR ANY BUSINESS OF YOUR OWN? (Includes farm or business of wife or husband. Also includes part ownership.) Yes No (b) DID YOU OWN ANY FARM OR BUSINESS BEFORE YOU WERE LAID OFF F R O M ------ ? (Includes farm or business of husband or wife. Also includes part ownership) Yes No 35 Page 10 Serial V. (continued) 21. (a) DOES YOUR WIFE (HUSBAND) WORK FOR MONEY PAY AT THE PRESENT TIME? Yes No Not Married If answer to (a) is "N o” , (b) IS SHE (HE) LOOKING FOR WORK RIGHT NOW? Yes No Not Married Whether answer to (a) is "Yes” or “ No,” (c) DID YOUR WIFE (HUSBAND) USUALLY HAVE A JOB FOR MONEY PAY BEFORE YOU WERE LAID OFF FROM------ ? Yes No Not Married 22. 23. ABOUT HOW MUCH OF THE LIVING EXPENSES OF YOURSELF (and "your family” , if any) WERE COVERED BY YOUR O W N ------ PAYCHECK DURING THE YEAR BEFORE YOU WERE LAID OFF FROM ------ ? (Approximate percent is sufficient) BESIDES Y O U R ------ PAYCHECK, DID YOU (AND YOUR FAM ILY) HAVE ANY OTHER MONEY COMING IN, DURING YOUR LAST YEAR A T ------ ? ______ Yes No If answer is "Yes” , WHERE DID YOU (AND YOUR FAM ILY) GET AN Y OTHER MONEY, DURING YOUR LAST YEAR A T ------ ? Check all sources stated (a) (b) (c) (d) ANOTHER JOB OF YOUR OWN? A JOB OF YOUR WIFE (HUSBAND) ? MONEY EARNED BY YOUR CHILDREN RENT FROM PROPERTY YOU (and/or your wife (husband)) OWNED? (e) ANY OTHER SOURCE WE HAVE NOT MENTIONED? If (e) is checked, state the source here: 36 Page 11 Serial V. (continued) 24. How is it now? Check all sources given (a) DO YOU WORK AT MORE THAN ONE JOB? (b) DOES YOUR FAMILY LIVE PARTLY ON MONEY YOUR WIFE (HUSBAND) EARNS? (c) DOES YOUR FAMILY GET SOME MONEY FROM ANY OF YOUR CHILDREN WHO WORK? (d) DO YOU (and/or wife (husband)) RECEIVE MONEY FROM RENTING PROPERTY (e) DO YOU (AND YOUR FAM ILY) NOW HAVE ANY OTHER SOURCE OF MONEY WE HAVE NOT MENTIONED If (e) is checked, state the source here: 37 Page 12 Serial VI. Family Adjusted Since------Layoff After you lost your job a t ------ , I suppose you must have had many problems in meeting your living expenses. I have just a few more questions about how the layoff affected you (and your fam ily). First let’s check on just what your family is and was before you were laid off from------ . 25. (a) DO YOU HAVE ANY CHILDREN WHO ARE NOW NOT YET 18 YEARS OF AGE? IF SO, HOW MANY? None Number (Regardless of whether the children are dependents) (b) DURING THE YEAR BEFORE Y O U R ------LAYOFF, DID YOU THEN HAVE CHILDREN WHO WERE THEN UNDER 18? IF SO, HOW MANY? None Number (Regardless of whether the children are dependents) 26. (a) HOW MANY PERSONS DO YOU (AND YOUR WIFE -or husband) NOW SUPPORT? None N um ber_______ (“ Support” means more than half their living expenses provided by the wife and/or hus band. Includes any children, regardless of age, as well as any others actually supported. Exclude from the number the respondent and spouse). (b) HOW MANY PERSONS DID YOU (AND YOUR W IFE-or husband) SUPPORT DURING THE YEAR BEFORE Y O U R ------ LAYOFF? None Number (See explanation under 26 ( a ) ) 27. HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS SINCE Y O U R ------ LAYOFF? (Refers only t o ------unemployment compensation benefits.) Yes No If answer to above question is “ No” , skip to ( f ); If “ Yes” , ask (a) to ( e ) , as required: (a) FOR HOW MANY WEEKS SINCE Y O U R ------LAYOFF? W eeks___ (b) HOW MUCH WAS YOUR USUAL WEEKLY BENEFIT? (c) HAVE THESE BENEFITS STOPPED BY NOW? Yes No If answer to (c) is “ Yes” , ask (d) and ( e ) : 38 Page 13 Serial VI. (continued) 27. (continued) (d) WHEN DID THESE BENEFITS STOP? M onth_______ (e) WHY DID THESE BENEFITS STOP? Year Check one resaon I got a paid j o b -----------.--------------------------------------- -----------My benefit rights were used u p ___________________ ________ Other reasons (If checked, _______ specify reason h e re ):____________________________________ _ If answer to first question under 27 is “ No” : (f) WHY DIDN'T YOU RECEIVE ANY UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT?_______________ 28. APART FROM UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS, HOW HAVE YOU (AND YOUR WIFE—or husband) MANAGED TO MEET YOUR LIVING EXPENSES, SINCE THE TIME YOU WERE LAID OFF FROM------ ? Check each method used (a) Nothing used, except wages of respondent (and/or wife or husband), plus respondent’s own unemployment benefits?_________________________________________________________________ ________ (b) Any unemployment benefits of any other members of fa m ily ? ______________ Drew out previous savings?_____________________________________________________________ If this item is checked, ask: ABOUT WHAT PERCENT OF THE SAVINGS YOU HAD AT THE TIME OF YOUR MOHAWK LAYOFF HAS BEEN DRAWN OUT? (Accept approximate percent or a rough fraction which interviewer will convert to a ______ % percentage)_______________________________________________________ (d) Borrowed money? (exclude time-payment purchases) _______ (e) Sold property? (Include added mortgage or sale of part ow nership)_________ ________ (f) Got money from other members of the family who lived in home of the respondent? (Whether given or lent?) ___________________________________________ (g) Got money from relatives who did not live with respondent? (whether given or lent)_____________________________________ ________ (h) Got money from other individuals? (Not relatives, whether given or le n t ) ___________________________________________________ _______ (i) Shared living quarters with others, not previously sh ared ?__________________ ________ ( j) Received assistance from any welfare agency? _____________________________ (Whether a government or a private agency and whether relief was in money or in kind) (k) Received surplus food? (whether as part of general welfare relief or any special surplus food distribution plan) ________________________________________________________ 39 Page 14 Serial VI. (continued) 28. (continued) (l) Assisted by receipt of disability benefits?______ (m ) Assisted by receipt of workmen’s compensation benefits?___________________________________ (n) Any other source o f assistance?______________ if checked, specify source here: 40 Page 15 Serial VII. Availability for Employment You have answered questions about the time in the past when you were looking for work. Now Professor Tolies needs a little more information about just how you stand right now— not only whether you are looking for a job but what kind of a job you most want, if you do want one. First let’s check over your answers about looking for work. If respondent has a job at present ( “ F ” or “ P” in question 7, 1st line, col. ( c ) ) ask: 29. (a) EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE A JOB NOW, ARE YOU ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR A BETTER ONE? Yes No If answer to (a) is “ Yes” , ask: ARE YOU LOOKING ONLY FOR A FULL-TIME JOB OR WOULD YOU THINK A PART-TIME OR SEASONAL JOB MIGHT BE BETTER THAN YOUR PRESENT JOB? (check one) F P S I f respondent does not have a job when interviewed, ask (b) to (h) as may be appropriate: (b) ARE YOU FULLY ABLE TO WORK AND ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR A JOB RIGHT NOW? Yes No If “ Yes” , check what kind of job :F F :P :S If answer to (b) is not a positive “ Yes” , ask ( c ) : (c) DO YOU FEEL IT’S NO USE LOOKING FOR WORK BECAUSE THERE ARE NO JOBS OPEN, BUT THAT YOU WOULD TAKE A JOB IF YOU COULD FIND ONE? Yes No If “ Yes” , check what kind of a job :F If answer to (b) or (c) is “ No” , ask: ;P ;S : (d) ARE YOU NOW RECOVERING FROM A TEMPORARY DISABILITY AND PLAN TO LOOK FOR WORK WHEN YOU DO RECOVER? (Includes both illness and physical injury) Yes No If (d) is not applicable, ask: 41 Page 16 Serial VII. (continued) 29. (continued) (e) HAVE YOU A PERMANENT DISABILITY WHICH MAKES YOU UNABLE TO TAKE A PAYING JOB? Yes No I f (e) is not applicable, ask: (f) ARE YOU NOW NEEDED AT HOME SO MUCH THAT IT IS NO USE LOOKING FOR A PAYING JOB? Yes No If “ Yes” , specify why needed_____________________________________________ (g) HAVE YOU STOPPED LOOKING FOR A JOB BECAUSE OF YOUR AGE? (Retired) Yes No (h) IS THERE ANY OTHER REASON WE HAVE NOT MENTIONED WHY YOU ARE NOT LOOKING FOR A JOB AT THIS TIME? Yes No If, “ Yes” , specify the reason 30. How about a possible return to (mill) ? (a) Check here if respondent has already been recalled by m i l l :___________________________________________________________ (b) DO YOU EXPECT TO BE RECALLED TO A JOB B Y -----(form erly------ ) ? __________________________________________________ Yes No I f “ Yes” : WHEN DO YOU THINK YOU MAY BE RECALLED? Months from date of interview? 42 Mos. Page 17 Serial VII. (continued) 31. If respondent is looking for work or expects to look for work in the future, ask: (a) WHAT KIND OF A JOB WOULD YOU MOST PREFER TO HAVE IN THE FUTURE? WOULD THAT BE WORK IN A FACTORY? Yes No WHAT OTHER KINDS OF JOBS WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO DO? (List three, if posible, in order of preference, indicating whether it constitutes factory work in each case.) Factory work? Yes (b) No Factory work? Yes (c) No Factory work? Yes (d) No 32. If respondent is or recently has been looking for work (whether presently employed or n ot), ask: HAVE YOU BEEN ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR A JOB OUTSIDE T H E ------ AREA— SO FAR AW AY THAT YOU COULD NOT GO TO WORK EVERY DAY FROM THE PLACE WHERE YOU NOW LIVE ? (i.e. outside the commuting area) Yes No 43 Page 18 Serial VII. (continued) 33. SUPPOSE A JOB WERE OFFERED TO YOU, WHICH PAID ABOUT THE SAME WAGES AS YOUR USUAL JOB A T ------ BEFORE YOUR LAYOFF BUT WHICH WAS SO FAR AW AY FROM YOUR PRESENT HOME THAT YOU COULD NOT GO TO WORK FROM THE PLACE YOU NOW LIVE, (outside the commuting area) WHAT WOULD YOU DO ABOUT SUCH A JOB OFFER? check one (a) Already has taken such a job since-----la y o ff ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------(b) Definitely would take such a j o b ________________________________________ _ (c) Perhaps would take it that; would depend on (specify w h a t ) ___________________________________________________ _______ (d) Would not take it, because:______________________________________________ 44 Page 19 Serial VIII. Education and Training When a worker is laid off his chance of getting another good job partly depends, as you know, on the education and training he has had or can get. So now I have a few questions about your own education and training. 34. WHAT IS THE HIGHEST GRADE OF REGULAR SCHOOL YOU COMPLETED? (a) Never attended regular school check _____________________________________________ I f attended regular school, give highest grade number: (b) Elementary___________________________________________________ or High School___________________________________________________ or College_______________________________________________________ 35. HAVE YOU HAD AN Y SPECIAL JOB TRAINING, IN ADDITION TO REGULAR SCHOOL AND IN ADDITION TO TRAINING BY AN Y FOREMAN OR FELLOW WORKER? Yes No Regardless of initial answer to #35, show respondent the card, labelled “ Kinds of Special Job Training” and ask # 3 6 36. Let’s check over some of the kinds of special job training the workers have had. Please look at this card. HAVE YOU HAD AN Y OF THESE KINDS OF SPECIAL JOB TRAINING? (check below under # 3 7 ) If “ Yes” for any kind as listed on card, ask: Page 20 Serial VIII. (continued) 37. DID YOU GET THAT KIND OF TRAINING BEFORE OR AFTER YOU WERE LAID OFF F R O M -----------OR BOTH BEFORE AND AFTERWARD? Check each kind in one or both spaces Before After (a) APPRENTICESHIP (Leading to a journeyman’s skill) ? ______ _____ (b) TECHNICAL TRAINING IN HIGH SCHOOL OR JUNIOR COLLEGE? (Examples: Auto Mechanic, Electrical, Home Economics, Agriculture) ______ _____ (c) TECHNICAL TRAINING IN A PRIVATE TRADE SCHOOL? ______ _____ (d) TECHNICAL TRAINING WHILE IN THE ARMED FORCES? ______ _____ (e) BUSINESS OR COMMERCIAL TRAINING IN HIGH SCHOOL OR JUNIOR COLLEGE? (Clerical, Stenographic, Bookkeeping, etc.) ______ _____ ( f) BUSINESS OR COMMERCIAL TRAINING IN A PRIVATE SCHOOL? ______ _____ (g) BUSINESS OR COMMERCIAL TRAINING WHILE IN THE ARMED FORCES? ______ _____ (h) EMPLOYER’S TRAINING COURSE? (Check only if the course required attendance for 6 weeks or more) ______ _____ (i) CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL TRAINING? ______ _____ ( j) OTHER? (not incidental training on the job) If (j) is checked, specify kind of training here: ___________________________________ ______ If any of the items in # 3 7 have been checked, ask # 3 8 and #39. 38. (a) DID AN Y SPECIAL JOB TRAINING HELP YOU TO GET OR KEEP THE MOST-SKILLED JOB YOU HAD A T -----Check one (Note: “ Most skilled job” has been identified under # 9 (a) above) (Very helpful (Some help (No help (Don’t know If “ very helpful” or “ some help” has been checked, ask: (b) WHICH KINDS OF TRAINING WERE HELPFUL? Letter(s): List, by letter— (a) etc. as shown in # 3 7 46 Page 21 Serial VIII. (continued) 39. (a) DID ANY SPECIAL JOB TRAINING HELP YOU TO GET OR KEEP ANY JOB SINCE YOU WERE PAID OFF F R O M ------ ? Check one (Note” Answer to # 7 above, shows any jobs since ------ layoff) (Very helpful (Some help (No help (Don’t know _______ _______ _______ _______ If “ very helpful” or “ some help” has been checked, ask: (b) WHICH KINDS OF TRAINING WERE HELPFUL? List, by letter— ( a ) , etc.— as shown in # 3 7 Letter(s) _______ Question # 6 on the postcard we checked over asked about a possible training course to fit you for a job, or a better job than you have now. Professor Tolies wants me to ask that question again so that he can be sure how you feel about any training course for workers who were laid off from th e ------ mills. (The inter viewer diouldjnakevetyclear that the asking of the following questions does not imply any specific retraining plan and that the answer does not constitute any application for admission or preference for admission in any subsequent possible plan.) 40. (a) IF THERE WERE A PLAN AT PRESENT FOR TRAINING WORKERS FOR NEW JOBS AND FOR PAYING THE WORKER SOMETHING WHILE HE WAS LEARNING, WOULD YOU BE INTERESTED? Check one: Yes Perhaps No Doesn’t know If (a) is answered “ Yes” or “ Perhaps” , ask ( b ) : (b) WHAT KIND OF TRAINING WOULD YOU W ANT? If (a) is answered “ Perhaps” , ask ( c ) : (c) You say you might or might not be interested. WHAT WOULD YOUR OWN INTEREST DEPEND ON? (Describe) ______________________________________________ If (a) is answered “ No” , ask ( d ) : (d) WHY ARE YOU NOT INTERESTED? (Describe reason)_______________________________________ 47 A Case Study Displaced Pottery Workers’ Adjustment to Layoff by David Levinson Report on a study o f the Department of Economics, Ohio University, under a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 49 Acknowledgm ents The director of this study is indebted to the following persons for their encouragement and assistance in carrying it out: E. L. Whettley, presi dent of the International Brotherhood of Operative Potters; J. Hall and J. Wells, operating managers of potteries affiliated with the United States Association; W. Papier, director of research, and H. Dinsmore, East Liver pool district director—both of the Ohio Bureau of Unemployment Com pensation; and Kenneth G. Van Auken, Special Assistant to the Com missioner of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. Contents Page Summary _________________________________________________________________ 53 Background of the study________________________________________________ -— 54 Personal characteristics_____________________________________________________ Age, sex, and marital status------------------------------------------------------------------Education and training--------------------------------------------------------------------------Homeownership and residence___________________________________________ 55 55 56 56 The pottery job_____________________________________________________________ 58 Unemployment_____________________________________________________________ Extent of unemployment_______________________________________________ Unemployment benefits-------------------------------------------------------------------------Financial adjustments to unemployment_________________________________ 51 61 63 64 The new job________________________________________________________________ Type of employment_____________________________________________________ 66 68 Attitudes and aspirations-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Jobs at the potteries___________________________________________________ Pottery jobs and the rule of seniority-----------------------------------------------------Employment conditions generally------------------------------------------------------------Older w ork ers_________________________________________________________ Young persons and unemployment______________ Working away from home_______________________ Attraction of industry--------------------------------------------------------------------------Resentment against city functionaries____________________________________ Social secu rity____________________________________________________ Unemployment compensation___________________________________________ Training ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 71 72 72 73 73 74 74 74 74 74 74 75 Appendixes: A. B. Methodology ____________________________________________________ Nonrespondents--------------------------------------------------------------------------Distribution of Respondents-------------------------------------------------------Personal interview s--------------------------------------------------------------------Survey questionnaire-------------------------------------------------------------------- Tables: 1. Current age of displaced pottery workers, by sex, 1962-63 survey-----2. Years of school completed by displaced pottery workers, by sex, 196263 s u rv e y ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. Duration of displayed pottery workers’ residence in or near community of pottery job, by sex and selected communities, 1962-63 survey------4. Distance traveled to pottery job by displaced pottery workers, by sex and selected communities, 1962-63 survey_________________________ 5. Pottery job tenure of displaced pottery workers, by sex and operating status of pottery, 1962-63 survey--------------------------------------------------6. Skill level of pottery jobs, displaced pottery workers, by sex and operat ing status of pottery, 1962-63 survey--------------------------------------------- 76 76 76 77 79 56 56 57 58 59 59 51 Contents—Continued Page Tables— Continued 7. Hourly wage rates on pottery jobs, displaced pottery workers, by sex, 1962-63 survey----------------------------------------------------------------------------8. Weeks worked by displaced pottery workers in last year on pottery job, by sex and operating status of pottery, 1962-63 survey------------------9. Wages earned by displaced pottery workers in last year on pottery job, by sex and operating status of pottery, 1962-63 survey------------------10. Layoff dates of displaced pottery workers, by operating status of pottery, 1962-63 survey---------------------------------------------------------------11. Labor force status upon layoff, displaced pottery workers, by sex and age, 1962-63 survey---------------------------------------------------------------------12. Duration and success of job search by displaced pottery workers, by sex, age, and pottery employer group and operating status, 1962-63 survey ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13. Incidence of receipt of unemployment benefits and reasons for non receipt among displaced pottery workers, by sex and age, 1962-63 survey___________________________________________________________ 14. Weeks of unemployment benefits drawn by displaced pottery workers, by sex, 1962-63 survey___________________________________________ 15. Current receipt of unemployment benefits and reasons for benefit ter mination among displaced pottery workers, by sex, age, and selected employer group, 1962-63 survey__________________________________ 16. Weekly unemployment benefits of displaced pottery workers, both sexes and males, by State, 1962-63 survey---------------------------------------------17. Current labor force status of displaced pottery workers, by sex, age, and pottery employer group, 1962-63 survey_______________________ 18. Hourly wage rates on current job and on pottery job for reemployed displaced pottery workers, by sex, 1962-63 survey_________________ 19. Comparative location of current job and pottery job, displaced pottery workers, by sex, 1962-63 survey__________________________________ 20. Comparative distance traveled to work on current job and pottery job, displaced pottery workers, by sex, 1962-63 survey__________________ Appendix tables: A -l. Circumstances of nonviability or nonresponse, 1962-63 survey of displaced pottery workers_____________ A -2. Distribution of respondents to part I o f questionnaire by pottery from which separated, modal period (s) of separations, and status of pottery, 1962-63 survey of displaced pottery workers__________ A-3. Information from part I of questionnaire on work status of part II nonrespondents, 1962-63 survey of displaced pottery workers____ 52 59 60 60 61 62 64 65 65 66 66 67 70 70 70 77 77 78 A Case Study of Displaced Pottery W orkers’ Adjustment to Layoff Summary When this study of pottery workers was made in late 1962 and 1963, about 1 in every 7 who had lost their jobs at least 6 months earlier was still looking for work. At the time, such long term unemployment affected less than 1 percent o f the U. S. labor force. It is likely that more of the pottery workers would have been unem ployed had not 2 women of every 5 and 1 man of every 6 left the labor force. Most of these women said they were “ doing their own house work” and nearly all of these men said either that they had retired or that they were unable to work. For those who had found jobs— about threefourths of the men and less than half of the women— the search had been prolonged, con suming at least 6 months for a majority of the women and about one-fourth of the men. Many of the employed reported lower wage rates than in the pottery, although a majority said that their new jobs required at least as much skill. In addition, a sizable number had taken jobs outside the town where they had worked in the pottery. A majority, on the other hand, said that their new jobs provided steadier employment than they had had in the pottery. The last year of pottery employment had typically afforded work in no more than 4 of every 5 weeks. This cir cumstance undoubtedly helps to explain the high proportion of women among those laid off— nearly half of the total, or almost twice the relative number employed in manufacturing as a whole. Many of the employment difficulties experi enced by the pottery workers, particularly the women, were associated with advanced age. Two-thirds of the men and three-fourths of the women were at least 45 years old, far more than in the U. S. labor force. But only 1 of every 8 pottery workers was old enough to qualify for full retirement benefits under OldAge and Survivors Insurance, and eligibility for benefits under a recently negotiated industry pension plan required 1 year’s service between December of 1962 and 1966, when benefits were to become payable. Retirement does not, then, appear to have been a practicable alternative to employment for any great number of the pottery workers. Many of them had little education, training, or experience to fit them for other employment. Half had worked at the pottery for at least 15 years, and over four-fifths had held unskilled or semiskilled jobs. About half had never gone beyond grade school, and less than one-tenth had any job training for work outside the pottery. Most of them were either unwilling to take training or had reservations about it, fre quently citing advanced age or ill health as a barrier. These reasons were also often given by the four-fifths of the pottery workers who said either that they would not move or would be reluctant to do so in order to accept a job at the same rate of pay they had earned in the pottery. Homeownership and other reasons associated with longtime residence in the area were, how ever, far more prevalent. During the period when these workers were being laid off, the areas where they lived and worked were generally characterized by rela 58 tively high unemployment rates or persistent unemployment. Much of the industry through out the area is heavy manufacturing (steel, metal products, and machinery); and mining and construction also account for a sizable pro portion of employment. Thus, not only were jobs scarce at the time, but many of those that were available were beyond the physical ca pacity or the skill of the older men and were foreclosed to the women. Although there were other potteries in the area, employment in the industry was generally not expanding. As an example of declining employment opportunities, one of the largest potteries claimed that mech anization had increased its physical production per man-hour about 55 percent between 1948 and 1962. Against this economic background, over onethird of the men and over half of the women who had been laid off by the potteries 6 months or more before the survey began had, at the time of the survey, exhausted their unemploy ment benefits. This occurred despite the fact that one-third of all those who drew benefits were on the rolls for 26 weeks or more. The desperation of the older pottery workers is vividly summed up in the following com ment by one of the participants in the study: . . . At one time [our town] was the pottery center of the world and now, on every corner, empty buildings, business going out, simply because of no work, and the workers cannot buy. . . . the sad part o f it is that most of these people are like myself; they spent all their lives in pottery, and now they are too old to get other work. And there is no other work here. . . . As for me, I am 59 years old, too young to get social security and too old for lots of jobs. Background of the Study The 13 potteries that had laid off the workers covered in this study were all located in the so-called tri-State area— the panhandle of West Virginia and the adjacent areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Ten of the thirteen were within a 35-mile radius of East Liverpool, Ohio, and five were either in that city or across the Ohio River in Chester or Newell, West Virginia. East Liverpool is the location of the national office of the United States Potters Association (USPA), of which all the potteries were mem bers. The USPA accounted for over half of the 1962 output of earthenware, or semivitreous ceramic dinnerware, manufactured for house hold use (industry 3263, as defined in the Standard Industrial Classification Manual by the U.S. Bureau of the Budget).1 East Liver pool also houses the national headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Operative Pot ters (IBO P), the union with which the USPA deals. 1 This industry has declined in physical volume o f output by more than 40 percent between 1950 and 1960. [The Relationship Between Imports and Employment, U.S. Department o f Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, April 1962. Processed, 143 pp.] The statements o f management officials interviewed indicate that the causes o f the decline were some combination o f import competition, plus domestic competition from plasticware and glassware. 54 Seven of the potteries were still operating at the time of the survey (designated in this re port as undissolved potteries and identified merely as companies A through G to avoid dis closing their identity). These companies were asked for lists of the names and addresses of the production and maintenance workers laid off since May 1959, and not recalled by the summer of 1962. The earlier date was chosen because it marked the signing of a collective bargaining agreement between the USPA and the IBOP which established a priority claim to a 32-hour workweek by employees on the pay roll as of July 1, 1958— the basic work force. Under the agreement, other employees— the extra list— were to be laid off in any week in which the basic work force would otherwise be employed less than 32 hours. Only 2 of the 6 dissolved potteries (identified as companies S, T, W, X, Y, and Z ), that is, those that had either shut down or gone out of business between 1958 and 1962, were able to supply a list of their former production and maintenance workers. One of these two, Com pany Z, shut down in the last quarter of 1962, while the study was in progress. For the other four dissolved companies, much of the neces sary information was obtained from former local union officers who had been involved in the shutdowns and other knowledgeable persons suggested by the national union. Additional in formation was found in court records of bank ruptcy proceedings. Altogether, a list of 2,194 names and ad dresses of former employees of the 13 potteries was compiled. Beginning in the fall of 1962, the first part of a 2-part questionnaire (appendix A ) was mailed to these persons with two follow up mailings to those who had not returned the questionnaire. Similarly, within a period rang ing from 1 to 5 months of the time part I of the questionnaire was returned, part II was mailed and three follow-up mailings were made to non respondents. The mailing operation was com pleted in June 1963. At that time, a sample of the nonrespondents was selected for personal interviews, which were conducted during the summer of 1963. The methodology is described in greater detail in appendix A, which also gives some information about the characteristics of the nonrespondents. A total of 1,468 responses were obtained to part I of the questionnaire and 1,303 to part II. Nearly all of the respondents who completed questionnaires omitted the requested informa tion for one or more items. These persons are included, in the tables in this report, in the “ un reported” category. The questionnaires sought information about the workers’ personal characteristics, their jobs at the potteries, their experience following the layoff—both during the period of unemploy ment and on the subsequent job (if any)— and some information, largely attitudinal, about their reactions to their changed employment status.2 These categories provide the organiza tional framework for this report. 2 The director o f the study also interviewed the chief operating managers o f 7 o f the firms, the chief officers o f the Potters union, and certain other officials. The focus o f the interviews was manage ment and union efforts to maintain business and thus preserve job opportunities in the industry. The findings o f that part o f the study are not presented in this report, which is restricted to the infor mation obtained from the workers themselves. Personal Characteristics In age, sex, marital status, and education, the composition of the study group of pottery workers differed appreciably from that of the labor force of the U.S. at the time of the study. The pottery workers included more married women, more persons age 45 or over, and more persons with scant education— characteristics associated with the lack of occupational and geographic mobility. Prevalent homeownership in locations close to the pottery as well as long residence in or near the place where they worked also tended to give the pottery workers strong roots in the community. Age, Sex, and Marital Status Nearly half of the respondents to part I of the questionnaire were women. By contrast, women accounted for only one-third of both the U.S. labor force and total employment in the pottery and related products industry in 196263. As indicated later, there is some evidence that the pottery industry in the tri-State area has been a major source of factory work for women. There were significant differences3 in the proportion of men and women between the dis solved and undissolved potteries. In fact, women outnumbered men among the workers laid off by potteries still in operation, as shown in the following tabulation: Both Sexes Status o f pottery Total ____________ Dissolved ______________ U ndissolved____________ Numher 1,468 1,155 313 Men P ercent Number 100 79 21 762 648 114 Women P er- Numcent her 100 85 15 706 507 199 P ercent 100 72 28 Perhaps the men employed by the undissolved potteries had, by virtue of greater continuity of employment, achieved higher seniority than the women or were less vulnerable to layoff because they had held more skilled jobs. A series of layoffs prior to shutting down would then leave comparatively more men to be dis placed when the pottery closes. In recent years, about two-fifths of the men and women in the labor force have already 8 Unless otherwise indicated or obviously inappropriate, the chi-square test o f significance at the 5-percent level was used throughout this report. 55 passed their 45th birthday. Among the pottery workers, on the other hand, this age group en compassed nearly two-thirds of the men and three-fourths of the women (table 1). About two-fifths of the total were 55 or older, and about one-eighth had attained age 65. Although younger workers were more likely to be beyond the scope of this survey because they had moved away (appendix A ), the potential overrepre sentation of older workers is probably not large enough to negate the conclusion that the laidoff pottery workers might be expected to ex perience prolonged unemployment. The older women, in particular, were likely to have a dif ficult job search. Because so many of the women had reached the age when married women are most apt to work, it is not surprising that more of them were married than is the case in the labor force as a whole— 64 percent, as compared with 56 percent. (In addition, children under the age of 18 were reported less frequently by the married women among the pottery workers than by those in the labor force— 40 percent vs. 55 percent.) The smaller difference in the pro portion of married men (81 percent of the pottery workers but 77 percent of the labor force) may be traceable to underrepresentation of men under the age of 25. Education and Training While women in the labor force as a whole have higher educational attainments than men, the reverse is true among blue-collar workers, probably because the men tend to hold the more skilled jobs. The pottery workers were in ex ception in this respect. Whereas about oneT able 1. Current A ge of D isplaced P ottery W orkers, by Sex , 1962-63 Survey Both sexes Current age Num ber Total i.............. 1,468 14 to 19 years_______ 20 to 24 years_______ 25 to 34 years_______ 35 to 44 years_______ 45 to 54 years_______ 65 to 61 y e a r s - _____ 62 to 64 y e a r s ______ 65 years and older----Unreported__________ 2 44 148 257 440 278 123 169 7 Per cent Female Male Num ber Per cent Num ber 100 762 100 706 0 1 42 109 122 197 123 65 100 3 (2) 1 2 39 135 243 155 58 69 4 0 3 10 18 30 19 8 12 6 14 16 26 16 9 13 (2) Per cent 100 (2) (2) „ 6 19 34 22 8 10 (2) 1Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. 9Less than 0.5 percent. 56 T able 2. Y ears op S chool Completed by D isplaced P ottery W orkers, by Sex , 1962-63 Survey Male Both sexes Years of school completed Num ber Per cent Num ber Total.............. . 1,468 100 762 No formal schooling __ Grades 1 to 5________ Grades 6 to 8........ .. Grades 9 and 1 0 ____ Grades 11 and 12____ First 2 years of college Other (as school for handicapped)......... Unreported__________ 3 70 641 318 364 8 0 5 44 22 25 2 48 326 157 194 7 11 53 0 4 3 25 0 Female Per cent Num ber 100 706 C1) 6 43 21 26 1 22 315 161 170 1 3 8 28 0 0 Per cent 100 0 3 45 23 24 0 1 4 1Less than 0.5 percent. N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. third of the men and two-fifths of the women employed as blue collar workers in March 1964, had not gone beyond elementary school,4 among the pottery workers more than two-fifths o f both the men and the women were in this cate gory (table 2). Moreover, an even smaller number of the women than of the men pottery workers had vocational training for occupations outside the pottery— only 37 women, compared with 76 men. Because of the correlation between educa tion and training, it is unlikely that many of either the men or women with other training were among the least educated.5*8 In either case, the training may have had little current ap plicability, since three-fifths of the handful who had training had completed it prior to 1950. Such levels of education and vocational train ing do not suggest any great occupational mobility. Homeownership and Residence Residential patterns among the pottery workers also typify a relatively immobile group. A majority of them lived less than 4 miles from the pottery where they were em ployed, and only 7 percent lived more than 10 miles away, with the distance inversely related to the size of the pottery community. The per 4 Formal Occupational Training o f Adult W orkers: Its E xtent, Nature, and Use (U.S. Department o f Labor, Manpower Adminis tration, Office o f Manpower, Automation and Training, 1964), Manpower/Automation Research Monograph No. 2, pp, 5-6, 8 “ Education Attainment o f Workers, March 1964,” Monthly Labor Review, May 1965, p. 523, also available as Reprint 2463. centage who owned their own homes— some what higher on the average than in the Nation as a whole— also varied inversely with the size of the community. There was, however, no such relationship between length of residence in the area and size of community. study, Steubenville, the largest town included, and the East Liverpool area, the center of the industry.6 There were few marked differences in length of residence between Steubenville and Crooksville, but both showed significantly longer residence than East Liverpool. Most of the layoffs among Steubenville pottery workers had occurred over 2Vsj years before the study began and those in Crooksville had occurred 2 years earlier. In East Liverpool, on the other hand, over four-fifths of the layoffs did not take place until the study was in progress, and more of the younger workers may still have been in the area. Length of residence in the area there fore appears to be largely a function of the age distribution of the pottery workers remaining in the area. The average pottery worker appears to have lived about 80 percent of his life in or near the community where the pottery was located (table 3 compared with table 1). That more of the women had lived there longer than the men was largely due to their greater con centration in the upper age groups. It may also reflect the married woman’s commitment to the location of her husband’s job and probably more stable employment patterns for non pottery workers, to whom many of these women were married. Similarly, the data on homeownership may overstate the extent of ownership if one as sumes that the workers who were not homeowners were more likely to have moved out of the area and therefore to be excluded from the study. Some 60 percent of the men and 70 per- Like the age distribution, the data on length of residence may be biased by the greater prob ability of outmigration among younger persons. This inference is supported by data for Crooksville, the smallest pottery town covered in the T able 3. D uration op Displaced P ottery W orkers’ R esidence in or near Comm unity of P ottery J ob, by S ex and S elected Communities , 1962-63 Survey Duration of residence Male Both sexes Number Percent Number Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Number 706 100 90 100 63 100 641 1 3 7 16 17 11 7 (x) W 2 5 11 25 27 17 11 3 6 26 103 103 167 122 83 19 1 2 3 6 (x) W Total__________ 1,468 100 762 100 2 19 50 200 244 343 332 193 60 (i) W 1 3 14 17 23 23 13 4 2 14 31 129 133 159 147 98 33 C1) ^ 2 4 17 18 21 19 13 4 (l) 1 5 11 Percent Percent Less than 1 year______ 1 to 5 years__________ 6 to 13 years_________ 14 to 24 years________ 25 to 34 years________ 35 to 44 years_______ 45 to 54 years________ 55 to 64 years________ 65 years or more_____ Did not live in (near) community________ Unreported___________ 7 18 East Liverpool, Ohio, area Steubenville, Ohio Crooksville, Ohio Female 5 19 71 111 184 185 95 27 (i) 1 2 7 0) 3 10 16 26 26 14 4 C1) 1 1 6 10 15 31 21 7 7 11 17 34 23 8 100 1 4 16 16 26 19 13 3 1 1 Less than 0.5 percent. cent of the women reported owning their homes, with the difference probably traceable in part to the greater prevalence of elderly unmarried women. It might also reasonably be assumed that families with working wives are more likely to buy a home. (Only 31 percent of the men pottery workers reported that their wives were working at the time of their layoff, where as it will be recalled that 64 percent of the women workers were married.) The extent of homeownership— averaging 65 percent—varied inversely with the size of the community in which the pottery workers had been employed, ranging from 79 percent in Crooksville to 42 percent in Steubenville. It •According to the 1960 Census o f Population, Crooksville had a population o f about 3,000—somewhat over one-tenth o f the total in Perry County, Ohio. The Steubenville-Weirton Standard Metro politan Statistical Area (Jefferson County, Ohio, and Brooke and Hancock Counties, West Virginia) had almost 168,000 inhabitants, with about three-fifths o f the total in the Ohio portion o f the area. The population o f Columbiana County, Ohio, in which East Liver pool is located, was about 107,000, and the city itself had some 22,000 inhabitants. 57 T a b l e 4. D is t a n c e T raveled to P ottery J ob by D is p l a c e d P ottery W orkers, b y Sex and Selected C o m m u n it ie s , 1962-63 Survey Male Both sexes Distance traveled Crooksville, Ohio Female East Liverpool, Ohio, area Steubenville, Ohio Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Number Percent Number Total__________ 1,303 100 676 100 627 100 87 100 53 100 583 100 Less than A mile_____ A mile but less than 1 mile_______________ 1 mile_______________ 2 to 3 miles__________ 4 to 5 miles__________ 6 to 10 miles_________ 11 to 25 miles- ______ More than 25 miles___ Unreported__________ 226 17 107 16 119 19 38 44 6 11 65 11 111 245 255 180 162 63 30 28 9 19 20 14 12 5 2 2 51 134 129 96 87 36 25 11 7 20 19 14 13 5 4 2 60 111 126 84 75 30 5 17 10 18 20 13 12 5 8 26 7 2 2 2 9 30 8 2 2 2 1 5 27 11 1 2 9 51 21 2 3 2 2 2 4 16 83 181 89 97 26 12 14 3 14 31 15 17 5 2 2 C1) Percent 1 Less than 0.5 percent. was 62 percent in the East Liverpool area. This assumes that the workers identified with a large-city pottery resided in that city and those identified with a smalltown pottery did not re side in a nearby city— an assumption which seems to be supported by the information on the distance traveled to work at the pottery. In traveling to work, the median distance re ported was 2-3 miles, although somewhat more of the women than of the men traveled less than 1 mile (table 4). The convenience of the pottery location may help to explain the high proportion of women among the workers. In Crooksville, 5 out of every 6 workers traveled no more than 1 mile; these workers lived “ within the shadow" of the pottery. In Steubenville, on the other hand, only about 1 worker in 8 lived that close to the pottery, and about 3 of every 4 lived at least 4 miles away. In East Liverpool, which is a fairly small city, the workers tended to live closer to the pottery than in Steubenville, but not so close as in Crooksville. The Pottery Job Given the respondents’ personal characteris tics, it is not surprising that half of them had been employed in the pottery from which they were laid off for at least 15 years. (See table 5.) Somewhat more of the women than of the men reported long service. This may reflect both the women’s greater concentration in the upper middle age brackets and the possibility that intermittent employment in the pottery impelled the men who were in a position to do so to seek steadier work elsewhere. The data on length of employment represent the number of years the respondents regarded themselves as attached to their pottery jobs, not neces sarily full years of employment in the pottery. The prevalence of long-service employees is consistent with the fact that 85 percent of the men and 72 percent of the women had worked at potteries that had been dissolved, voiding whatever seniority protection they might have acquired. The median length of service for the 58 former employees of dissolved potteries fell in the 15-19 years class, whereas for those of the undissolved companies it was in the 6-9 year class, and IY2 times as many of the former group had 10 or more years’ service. These differences in length of service are also related to the somewhat higher skill level of the pottery jobs for those who had worked at dis solved potteries, although the larger proportion of women laid off by the undissolved potteries may also be a factor. Altogether, few of the laid-off workers had held skilled jobs. Nearly one-fifth had worked at unskilled jobs and almost two-thirds at semiskilled occupations (table 6). Far more women than men were found in the latter category. Apparently many of the semiskilled women had been employed in jobs ranking fairly close to the bottom of the wage hierarchy, for fourfifths of them had reportedly earned less than $1.75 an hour in the last few months on their T able 5. P ottery J ob T enure op D is p l a c e d P ottery W 1 9 6 2 -6 3 Pottery job tenure Both sexes Number Percent Number Sex by and Female Male Percent orkers, O p e r a t in g Statu s of P ottery, Survey Number Undissolved potteries Dissolved potteries Percent Number Percent Number Percent Total____________________ 1,468 100 762 100 706 100 1,155 100 313 100 Less than 1 year_______________ 1 to 2 years____ ________________ 3 to 5 years____________________ 6 to 9 years____________________ 10 to 14 years__________________ 15 to 19 years__________________ 20 to 29 years_________________ ____________ 30 to 39 years 40 years or more_______________ Unreported____________________ 58 110 141 129 274 280 234 167 62 13 4 8 10 9 19 19 16 11 4 43 63 81 77 119 119 116 91 47 6 6 8 11 10 16 16 15 12 6 15 47 60 52 155 161 118 76 15 7 2 7 9 7 22 23 17 11 2 1 27 50 101 104 223 235 194 155 60 6 2 4 9 9 19 20 17 13 5 31 60 40 25 51 45 40 12 2 7 10 19 13 8 16 14 13 4 0 0 0 0 2 1 Less than 0.5 percent. T able 6. S kill L evel of P ottery J obs,1 D isplaced P ottery W orkers, by Sex and Operating Status of P ottery, 1962-63 S urvey Skill level of pottery job 1 Both sexes Number Male Percent Number Female Percent Number Undissolved potteries Dissolved potteries Percent Number Percent Percent Number Total____________________ 1,468 100 762 100 706 100 1,155 100 313 100 Unskilled______________________ Semiskilled_____________________ Skilled_________________________ Both unskilled and semiskilled 8__ Both semiskilled and skilled 8___ Clerical, custodial, and other____ Unreported and unidentifiable___ 266 935 151 32 13 21 50 18 64 10 2 160 431 101 18 10 18 24 21 57 13 2 1 2 3 106 504 50 14 3 3 26 15 71 7 2 208 728 127 23 11 23 35 18 63 11 2 1 2 3 57 208 26 4 2 18 66 8 1 0 1 3 1 Reported job titles assigned to skill level on basis of Dictionary of Occupational Titles, 2d edition. (Washington, Social Security Administra tion, 1949). 2Less than 0.5 percent. pottery jobs. (See table 7.) Less than onefourth of the men, on the other hand, reported such low wages, and over two-fifths of them earned $2 or more an hour. Some of the wagerate data apply to periods as much as 5 years prior to the 1962-63 survey. The wage distribu tion for men, however, is reasonably consistent with the average hourly earnings of production workers in the pottery and related products in dustry in 1960-62, when four-fifths of the lay offs took place. In those years, the industry average rose from $2.12 to $2.21.7 Women also worked fewer weeks during their last year on the pottery job, even allowing for the fact that twice as many women as men either did not report or said they did not re member how many weeks they had worked. For men who reported such information, the median fell in the 41-45 week class; for women, in the 31-35. (See table 8.) Thus, at least the latter fell considerably short of year-round em ployment. 7 Employment and Earnings Statistics for the United States, 1909-65, (BLS Bulletin 1312-3, December 1965), pp. 117-118. 0 0 4 0 16 5 8 Workers who reported they alternated between different jobs. N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. The difference in the steadiness of employ ment for men and women may be related to the fact that dissolved potteries, which ac counted for more of the men than of the women, provided about 15 weeks more of work than the undissolved, on the average. One could argue that a decision to shut down might have followed a period of slack work during which the men would have been less vulnerable to T able 7. H ourly W age R ates on P ottery J obs, D isplaced P ottery W orkers, b y S e x , 1 9 6 2 -6 3 Survey Both sexes Hourly wage rates Total_________ Num ber 1,303 Less than $1.25______ $1.25 to $1.49_______ $1.50 to $1.74_______ $1.75 to $1.99_______ $2.00 to $2.24_______ $2.25 to $2.49_______ $2.50 to $2.74_______ $2.75 to $2.99_ _____ $3 00 or more Other (as, on salary) __ Unreported__________ 16 166 472 241 138 81 40 20 62 14 53 Per cent Female Male Num ber 100 676 1 13 36 19 11 6 3 2 5 1 4 6 6 153 179 112 71 36 19 62 12 20 Per cent Num ber Per cent 100 627 100 0 0 10 160 319 62 26 10 4 1 2 26 51 10 4 2 23 27 17 11 5 3 9 2 3 2 33 0 0 (1) 5K 1 Less than 0.5 percent. 59 T able 8. W eeks W orked by D isplaced P ottery W orkers in L ast Y ear on P ottery J ob, by Sex and Operating Status of P ottery, 1962-63 Survey Weeks worked in last year on pottery job Both sexes Number Female Male Percent Number Percent Number Dissolved potteries Percent Number Percent Undissolved potteries Number Percent Total. ................................. 1,303 100 676 100 627 100 1,035 100 268 100 1 to 10 weeks__________________ 11 to 20 weeks_________________ 21 to 25 weeks___ _____________ 26 to 30 weeks_________________ 31 to 35 weeks_________________ 36 to 40 weeks_________________ 41 to 45 weeks___ ____ _________ 46 to 50 weeks_________________ More than 50 weeks____________ Unreported1___________________ 51 119 105 90 67 111 113 161 204 282 4 9 8 7 5 9 9 12 16 22 11 50 42 45 33 76 73 98 131 117 2 7 6 7 5 11 11 15 19 17 40 69 63 45 34 35 40 63 73 165 6 11 10 7 5 6 6 10 12 26 24 82 81 78 53 89 107 140 172 209 2 8 8 8 5 9 10 14 17 20 27 37 24 12 14 22 6 21 32 73 10 14 9 5 5 8 2 8 12 27 1 Includes those not answering, or not remembering, and those with under 1 year of employment. T able 9. W ages E arned by D isplaced P ottery W orkers in L ast Y ear on P ottery J ob, by Sex and Operating S tatus of P ottery, 1962-63 S urvey Wages in last year on pottery job Both sexes Number Percent Number Total____________________ 1,303 100 676 Less than $500_________________ $500 to $1,000............................. . $1,000 to $1,500______ _________ $1,500 to $2,000___ .................... $2,000 to $2,500......... ................... $2,500 to $3,000..................... ....... $3,000 to $4,000_______ _____ $4,000 to $5,000________________ More than $5,000______________ Unreported2___________________ 58 128 143 131 158 113 195 95 25 257 5 10 11 10 12 9 15 7 2 20 3 31 51 55 60 67 179 91 24 115 Percent 1 Less than 0.5 percent. 2 Includes those not answering, or not remembering, and those with under one year of employment. temporary layoff. On the other hand, it might also be argued that management was making a maximum effort to save the enterprise and thus would have offered steadier employment to its women employees as well as the men. Whatever the explanation, the combination of more intermittent employment and lower wage rates reduced women’s wages in their last year on the pottery job far below those of men. Again, allowance must be made for the fact that more of the women than of the men did not re port, but this difference is probably not great enough to alter the conclusion. Among those who reported their annual earnings, the median earnings class for men is $3,000-3,999 and for women only $1,000-1,499 (table 9). Fortu nately, many of these women were married and thus presumably their earnings represented secondary income for their families. 60 Female Male O Number Dissolved potteries Percent Number Percent Undissolved potteries Number 100 627 100 1,035 100 268 5 8 8 9 10 27 14 4 17 55 97 92 76 98 46 16 4 1 142 9 16 15 12 16 7 3 37 93 107 104 131 96 175 89 22 181 4 9 10 10 13 9 17 9 2 18 21 35 36 27 27 17 20 6 3 76 (l) C1) 23 Percent 100 8 13 13 10 10 6 8 2 1 28 N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals, v The male-female differential in annual earn ings may also be related to the larger propor tion of women associated with undissolved pot teries. The median earnings class for former employees of dissolved potteries was $500 more than for those of the potteries that were still in operation. From the data on annual earnings, hourly wages, and weeks of work, it may be inferred that the median workweek for men ranged from 41 to 45 hours. For women, on the other hand, the median appears to have been between 22 and 25 hours. In summary, the loss of the pottery job was more costly to the men than the women, and likewise for the workers laid off at dissolved potteries as compared with the former em ployees of undissolved potteries. Unemployment The timing of the job loss accentuated its impact on the pottery workers, coming as it did during a period generally characterized by less than full employment. (See table 10.) More over, during the years in question, several of the pottery areas— Steubenville-Weirton, Cam bridge, East Liverpool-Salem, for example— generally were classified as areas of substantial or substantial and persistent unemployment.8 In addition, except for entry jobs, few of the other industries in the region would appear to afford much opportunity for workers whose main— or only— experience had been in the pot tery industry. The following distribution of employment in March 1962 for the Steuben ville-Weirton area and for Columbiana County (East Liverpool) exemplifies the situation: Number o f employees, mid-March, 1962 SteubenvilleWeirton Columbiana County 46,782 17,490 All in d u stries____________________ Agricultural services, forestry and fisheries _____________________________ Mining _________________________________ Contract construction___________________ Manufacturing _________________________ Food and kindred p ro d u c ts________ Stone, clay, and glass p ro d u c ts____ Primary metal industries _________ Fabricated metal p ro d u cts_________ M ach in ery__________________________ Transportation and other public utilities Wholesale t r a d e ________________________ Retail t r a d e ____________________________ Finance, insurance, and real e s t a t e ____ Services ________________________________ Other __________________________________ 1,022 882 30,501 385 22,204 1,486 2,496 1,061 5,640 1,083 3,936 5 303 427 8,917 2,399 630 1,358 2,937 768 442 3,864 668 2,064 32 T able 10. L a y o f f D a t e s of D i s p l a c e d P o t t e r y W orkers, by Operating Status of P ottery, 1962-63 Survey Undissolved potteries Dissolved potteries Total Layoff dates Num ber Per cent Num ber Per cent Total_________ 1,468 100 1,155 100 Second half, 1957 First half, 1958 Second half, 1958 First half, 1959 Second half, 1959____ First half, 1960______ Second half, 1960____ First half, 1961______ Second half, 1961____ First half, 1962______ Second half, 1962____ 10 190 2 37 91 108 250 68 58 162 465 a27 1 13 10 190 2 11 85 85 211 39 16 (!) 1 7 7 18 3 74 448 6 09 TTnrepnrt.eri (i) 2 6 7 17 5 4 11 32 2 _ Num ber Per cent 313 100 26 6 23 39 29 58 88 17 227 8 2 7 12 9 18 28 5 9 1 Less than 0.5 percent. a These persons did not report the information in question; their layoff dates were somewhere between May 1959 and about December 1962. N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. believed there were no job opportunities. Even though not actively looking for a job, these workers might reasonably be classified as in the labor force and unemployed, under definitions used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.9 Thus, it appears that about 95 percent of the younger men and 92 percent of the younger women re mained in the labor force. The figure for women is lower because some of them “ took up house work,” perhaps a reflection of a tendency for secondary earners to withdraw from the labor force if upon the loss of a job they see little alternative employment opportunity. N ote : Total excludes em ploym ent on railroads and self-em ploy ment; however, it includes industries for which data are not shown separately, as does the total for manufacturing. Dashes indicate data withheld to avoid disclosure o f employer’s identity. Source : U.S. Department o f Commerce, Bureau o f the Census, County Business Patterns, First Quarter 1962, East North Central States, part 4B, table 2. In these circumstances, it is noteworthy that less than half of the elderly pottery workers left the labor force when they lost their jobs. Some 70 percent of the men and 40 percent of the women age 65 and over looked for a job (table 11.) Most of the younger men and women who did not immediately search for another job said either that they expected to be recalled to the pottery job or that they * See pertinent issues o f Area Labor Market Trends and The Labor Market and Employment Security (U.S. Department o f Labor, Bureau o f Employment Security). Extent of Unemployment A small number of women and somewhat more men were spared a job search; they had another job immediately. Few of the workers who had to look for a job found one quickly. Nevertheless, half of the men who got a job did so within 18 weeks, and half of the women within 25 weeks (table 12). About a tenth of both the men and women searched for a job for a year or more before they succeeded, and nearly half of them had not found a job at the * See “ Technical Note” in each issue o f Employment and Earn ings and Monthly Report on the Labor Force, under Concepts, un employed persons. U.S. Department o f Labor, Bureau o f Labor Statistics. 61 time of the survey. As expected, more of the younger workers found jobs and had a shorter search. Age differentials on this score were somewhat larger among the women. pany Z) and those laid off by potteries that continued in operation. The search lasted longer for the former group, where the median for those reporting success fell in the 26-51 week class, compared with the 9-18-week class for the displaced employees of undissolved pot teries. This undoubtedly reflected greater com petition for jobs following a plant shutdown in a small community. But one-third of the ex employees of the undissolved potteries did not find a job, compared with one-fourth of those of the dissolved potteries. Again, this difference may be related to the larger number of women in the former category. It may also indicate that a pottery in operation, to the extent that it has a choice, lays off its least efficient workers. The unsuccessful group of jobseekers and the groups with a short search are inflated by the inclusion of the employees of Company Z, most of whom had been laid off in late 1962 and had thus lost their jobs only a few weeks before they responded to the questionnaire. When the Company Z respondents are excluded, the per centage of unsuccessful jobseekers falls to 17 for the men and 40 for the women. Similarly, the percentage of jobseekers who spent half a year or more in their search rises from 17 to 27 percent of the men and from 19 to 26 percent of the women. For more than two-fifths of the men and two-thirds of the women, then, the conventional 26 weeks of benefits under unem ployment insurance would have been inadequate to cover the entire period of unemployment. The length of time elapsing in the search for another job was significantly related to the worker’s age, education, and the skill level of his pottery job, but it was more closely related to the time when he lost his job and the location of the pottery where he had worked. The fol lowing tabulation, which shows the contingency coefficient derived from the chi-square test of The success and duration of the job search also differed between workers who had been laid off by dissolved potteries (again excluding Com T able 11. L abor F orce Status U pon L ayoff, D isplaced P ottery W orkers, by Sex and A ge, 1962-63 S urvey All ages1 Labor force status and sex B oth Sexes Total__________________________________________ Number 45 to 64 years Under 45 years Percent Number Percent Number 65 years and over Percent Number Percent 21,468 100 451 100 841 100 2 169 100 Looked for work______________________________________ Had another job_ ___________________________________ Did not look for work_______________ ___ ___________ Expected recall to pottery_________________________ Believed no job opportunity__________________ __ Retired _________________________________________ Physically disabled________________ ____ __________ Took up housework________________ ____ __________ Moved away_____________________________________ Other___________________________________________ M en Total__________________________________________ 1,220 30 217 70 3 46 23 24 47 4 83 2 15 4 403 9 39 17 2 89 2 9 4 717 20 104 40 1 7 10 14 30 2 85 2 12 5 96 1 71 12 57 1 40 7 1 1 2 3 39 8 2 10 23 5 1 6 2 762 100 274 100 385 100 2100 100 Looked for work__________________ ___________ ______ Had another job_ _ ___________________________ ____ __ Did not look for work ____________________________ Expected recall to pottery_______- ________________ Believed no job opportunity___________ ___________ Retired _________________________ _ _________ Physically disabled__________________ ___________ Moved away________________________ ____ _____ Other____________________________________________ W omen Total _________________________________________ 676 23 62 17 2 23 10 8 2 89 3 8 2 258 7 9 4 2 94 2 3 1 1 347 16 22 8 90 4 6 2 69 69 30 5 30 5 (S) 3 1 1 (3) 1 1 1 3 4 6 1 1 1 1 20 4 1 20 4 1 706 100 177 100 456 100 69 100 Looked for work_____________________________________ Had another job ___________________________________ Did not look for work___________________ _ _________ Expected recall to pottery______________ __________ Believed no job opportunity__________ __________ Retired _______________________ ____ ________ ____ Physically disabled_________________ ___________ Took up housework_________________ ____________ Moved away___________________ ________________ Other_________!__________________________ ________ 544 7 155 53 1 23 13 24 39 2 77 1 22 7 145 2 82 1 370 4 81 1 27 1 39 1 13 7 32 1 4 6 14 24 1 1 Includes respondents who did not report age (3 men and 7 women). 2 Includes 1 man who did not report labor force status. 3Less than 0.5 percent. 62 (8) 3 2 2 3 (s) (8) (8) 3 2 3 5 4 8 6 2 3 8 5 1 (8) 1 2 1 (3) (3) (3) (8) 2 4 3 1 (3) (3) (8) (8) 7 7 10 1 1 3 5 19 4 2 9 27 6 3 13 (3) N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. significance between the indicated character istic and duration of job search (excluding ex employees of Company Z ), indicates the close ness of the relationships: Characteristic1 Age __________________________________ Education ___________________________ Skill level o f pottery j o b ________ Date o f loss o f pottery j o b ______ Location o f p o tt e r y _____________ Number of pairs Contingency o f characteristics coefficient 758 734 723 738 756 .31 .24 .19 .34 .45 1 Based on data underlying tables 1, 2, 6, 19, and B-2, respectively. None o f these circumstances, however, had a particularly strong influence on the length o f the job search. The highest correlation was found with respect to the location o f the pottery. This may imply that even elderly workers with little education or skill can get jobs fairly quickly if they live in an area where job oppor tunities are relatively plentiful or,conversely, thateven young, well-educated, and highly skilled workers will suffer prolonged un employment unless they leave an area where few jobs are available. Unemployment Benefits Following the loss of their pottery jobs, over 80 percent of the respondents received unem ployment compensation, with the proportion be ing somewhat (but not significantly) higher for women than for men with the exception of those age 65 and over (table 13). More women said they received benefits than had reported an active search for work, tending to support the classification among the unemployed of workers who said they expected recall to the pottery or were not looking for work because they believed there were no job opportunities. Among those who did not receive unemploy ment insurance benefits, the reason given by three-fifths of the men but less than one-fifth of the women was that they got another job. A majority of the women, but only one-fifth of the men, said they had no accrued benefits. Similarly, about twice as many women as men (25 and 13 percent) drew no benefits because they had retired or were unable to work, mir roring differences in the age distributions and, presumably, the need to work. Not only did markedly fewer women than men draw no benefits because of finding a job, but the women also stayed on the benefit rolls longer than the men. Among those who re ported the precise duration of benefits, the median fell in the 13-18-week class for men and in the 19-25-week class for women (table 14). The difference was especially pronounced among workers reporting the receipt of benefits for a period of 26-38 weeks. The maximum duration of benefits in the States where the laid-off workers had been employed is 26 weeks for Ohio and West Virginia and 30 weeks for Pennsylvania, although all three were among the States which had extended benefit programs during the 1958-59 and 1961-62 recessions.10 A number of the pottery workers obviously benefited from such programs, but no attempt was made to measure the prevalence of ex tended benefits. About three-fourths of the exemployees of Pottery Z had lost their jobs so recently that they were still receiving benefits at the time of the survey, but only 2 percent of the workers formerly employed by other companies were still on the benefit rolls (table 15). For a majority of the latter group (not quite half the men but over two-thirds of the women), pay ments had been terminated because they had exhausted their benefits. Among the men, how ever, a somewhat larger number reported that the reason for termination of benefits was re employment; slightly more than half had either been recalled by the pottery or had found another job. Among the women, these reasons were given only half as often. Similarly, the women received lower benefits than the men, with the median amounts falling in the $21-$25 and the $31-$35 class, respec tively, among those who reported, as shown in table 16. (The unusually large percentage who did not report may indicate that many o f the respondents regarded this as highly personal information.) Moreover, 70 percent of the women, but only 20 percent of the men received less than $26 a week. In part, the male-female differential may be traceable to variations in benefit formulas among the three States. Cer tainly, the effect of differences in benefit ceil ings stands out clearly in the State benefit dis tributions for men, and the median benefit amounts differ, being $21-$25 in West Virginia, $26-$30 in Ohio, and $31-$35 in Pennsylvania. Such differences are the root of a longstanding complaint by unemployed pottery workers who have been employed in potteries in the West Virginia part of the East Liverpool area. 10 Harry Malisoff, The Financing o f Extended Unemployment In surance Benefits in the United States (Kalamazoo, Mich., The Up john Institute for Employment Research, April 1963). 63 T able 12. Duration and Success of J ob Search by Displaced P ottery W orkers, by Sex , A ge, and P ottery E mployer Group and Operating S tatus , 1962-63 Survey All jobseekers Sex, age, and pottery employer group and operating status A ll Potteries Both sexes All ages____________________ 45 to 64 years_____________________ 65 years and over_________________ Men Ail ages____________________ Under 45 years____________________ Women Under 45 years____________________ P otteries Other T han C ompany Z Both sexes All ages____ ________________ Percent of jobless who— Found job within— Number Percent Did not find job Found job Less than 5 weeks 5-8 weeks 9-18 weeks 26-51 weeks 19-25 weeks 52-103 weeks 104 weeks or more Did not report 1,220 100 46 51 12 6 10 5 8 7 2 3 403 717 96 100 100 100 38 46 71 57 51 27 16 11 6 9 4 2 11 11 5 5 5 6 7 9 3 7 8 4 2 2 4 3 2 676 100 38 59 18 7 11 6 7 8 2 3 258 347 69 100 100 100 33 36 67 64 61 32 21 18 9 11 5 3 10 13 6 6 6 7 6 9 3 7 8 4 3 2 3 3 1 544 100 55 41 3 10 4 10 7 2 145 370 27 100 100 100 48 56 81 46 41 15 3 4 4 4 10 10 4 6 8 4 2 3 3 - 4 12 9 4 5 — __ 3 4 794 100 28 67 13 6 14 7 12 11 3 4 Under 45 years____________________ 45 to 64 y e a r s _________ _________ 65 years and o v e r - - __ __________ Men All ages____________________ 232 486 73 100 100 100 15 29 66 81 67 29 19 12 7 10 5 3 17 14 3 8 7 7 11 14 4 12 12 5 4 3 4 4 5 415 100 17 79 21 8 15 9 11 13 3 4 Under 45 years____________________ 45 to 64 y e a r s ____________________ 65 years and over- - _______________ Women All ages____________________ 144 219 50 100 100 100 8 14 60 89 82 36 24 21 10 14 5 4 15 17 4 8 9 8 9 13 4 14 13 6 5 3 3 4 4 379 100 40 55 5 4 13 6 13 10 3 5 Under 45 years____________________ 45 to 64 y e a r s ___________________ 65 years and over_________________ C ompany Z Both sexes All ages____________________ 88 267 23 100 100 100 27 41 78 67 55 13 9 4 3 4 20 12 8 6 4 14 14 4 9 11 4 3 4 6 4 9 426 100 78 21 4 1 _____ 171 231 23 100 100 100 72 83 74 27 17 22 11 — 5 Under 45 years____________________ 45 to 64 years_____________________ 65 years and over_________________ Other D issolved P otteries Both sexes All ages___ _________________ 7 3 3 3 13 2 2 553 100 26 70 12 5 10 8 15 15 4 4 Under 45 years____________________ 45 to 64 years ____________ 65 years and over_________________ U ndissolved Potteries Both sexes All ages____________________ 137 351 63 100 100 100 12 24 68 82 72 30 14 13 8 9 3 2 14 11 3 9 8 10 12 18 3 18 15 5 6 5 6 4 2 241 100 34 62 15 9 22 6 6 4 i 4 Under 45 years___________________ 45 to 64 years __________________ 65 years and over_________________ 95 135 10 100 100 100 21 40 60 76 56 30 24 10 11 8 10 21 24 7 5 7 4 10 3 4 10 2 1 3 4 10 1 Less than 0.5 percent. N ote: Sums of individual items may not equal totals because of round Financial Adjustments to Unemployment Among the respondents who drew unemploy ment benefits and those who did not but who were looking for jobs (a total of 1,169 on part of the questionnaire), one-fifth indicated that they drew on personal savings during their period of joblessness.11 The proportion was* II n Information on financial adjustments to unemployment was not requested o f the respondents who said that they did not look fo r work upon losing their pottery jobs. 64 9 9 (*) 0) ___ « _ _ _ 1 0) 0) 4 ing and because some totals include persons not shown separately since they did not report age. about the same for single and married persons, but was twice as high for men as for women (26 and 13 percent of the respective groups of 578 and 591). Only two-thirds of those who used savings reported on the amount; the median for this group was $300-500. Likewise, 16 percent did not report whether they had ex hausted their savings, but 38 percent said that they did and 46 percent that they did not. About 6 percent of the designated respond ents reported that they borrowed money, but T able 13. I ncidence of R eceipt of U nemployment B enefits and R easons for N onreceipt A mong D isplaced P ottery W orkers, by S ex and A ge, 1962-63 Survey Both sexes Women Men Sex and age Under 45 years All ages 45 to 65 years 65 years and over Under 45 years All ages 65 years and over 45 to 65 years 45 to 65 years Under 45 years All ages 65 years'and over All workers:1 Number_____________ __________ Percent_________________________ 1,468 100 451 100 841 100 169 100 762 100 274 100 385 100 100 100 706 100 177 100 456 100 69 100 Percent of workers who: Received benefits- ___________ Did not receive benefits_______ Number of nonrecipients...... ......... .. 81 18 264 78 21 94 85 14 119 70 29 49 79 20 154 76 22 61 82 17 67 74 25 25 84 16 110 83 19 33 88 11 52 64 35 24 Percent of nonrecipients reporting: Total, all reasons_____________ 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 42 34 11 7 52 37 6 27 53 12 60 20 9 4 67 21 73 18 1 4 12 24 52 8 17 54 14 11 24 67 2 50 35 3 8 6 19 58 4 12 29 54 17 6 8 5 2 7 11 2 4 4 3 7 6 Got job______________________ No accrued benefits___________ Retired_______________________ Not able to work____________ Other reasons, including moved away_______________________ 1 Includes small number of persons (about 1 percent of each category) who did not report whether they received benefits. N ote : Sums of individual items may not equal totals because o f rounding and because some totals include persons not shown separately since they did not report age. about one-fourth of these did not report the amount borrowed. Among the few who did, the median amount was $300-500. become so inured to layoffs that they adjusted to recurring spells of unemployment in quite routine fashion. Some 16 percent drew on other nonroutine sources of income or made unusual budgetary adjustments during their unemployment. Most frequently (about 6 percent), these persons re ported, “ We got help from private people out side our household.” About one-fourth of the total reported receiving noncash public assist ance, such as free food. No more than 2 per cent reported each of the following: “ We moved to cheaper housing,” “ We sold our prop erty,” or “ We got cash assistance from a public or private welfare agency.” The comparative infrequency of extraordi nary consumption or dissaving patterns sup ports the view that these pottery workers had T able 14. W eeks of U nemployment B enefits Drawn by D isplaced P ottery W orkers, by Sex , 1962-63 S urvey Weeks of unemployment benefits drawn Both sexes Num ber Per cent Male Num ber Female Per cent Num ber Total_________ 1,189 100 599 100 590 Have just applied-----1 or 2 weeks_________ 3 or 4 weeks_________ 5 to 8 weeks_________ 9 to 12 weeks________ 13 to 18 weeks-........ 19 to 25 weeks__ ____ 26 to 38 weeks______ 39 or more weeks____ “ Full amount due” __ Unreported_________ 17 30 99 184 115 129 101 226 181 86 21 1 3 8 16 10 11 9 19 15 7 2 12 24 59 104 65 71 54 82 87 33 8 2 4 10 17 11 12 9 14 15 6 1 5 6 40 80 50 58 47 144 94 53 13 Per cent 100 0) 1 7 14 9 10 8 24 16 9 2 1Less than 0.5 percent. N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equali totals. 65 T able 15. Current R eceipt op U nemployment Benefits and R easons for B enefit T ermination A mong D isplaced P ottery W orkers, by Sex , A ge, and Selected E mployer Group, 1962-63 Survey 65 years and over 45 to 65 years Under 45 years All ages Female Male Both sexes Employer groups, current benefit status, and reason 45 to 65 years Under 45 years All ages 65 years and over 65 years and over 45 to 65 years Under 45 years All ages A ll P otteries Total receiving benefits after layoff: Number________________________ Percent_________________________ 1,189 100 353 100 713 100 118 100 599 100 209 100 314 100 74 100 590 100 144 100 399 100 44 100 28 29 28 28 29 32 30 20 27 24 27 49 42 36 43 55 32 26 28 62 52 49 54 52 24 4 2 01) 29 5 2 24 4 11 34 4 1 36 5 36 4 15 14 4 2 18 4 3 1 14 4 5 3 9 400 100 86 100 287 100 26 100 Still receiving benefits_____________ Not receiving benefits: Benefits exhausted____________ Employed: Found job ________________ Recalled by p o tte r y ______ Other reasons_________________ Current status unreported_________ P otteries O ther T han C ompany Z Total receiving benefits after layoff: Number________________________ Percent_________________________ Still receiving benefits- ___________ Not receiving benefits: Benefits exhausted____________ Employed: Found jo b ________________ Recalled by pottery _______ Other reasons ____ Current status unreported 0 0) 0 767 100 0 77 100 484 100 203 100 5 0 0 367 100 3 117 100 0 197 100 51 100 0 0 2 1 2 1 1 2 2 3 1 3 58 46 59 83 47 39 43 80 68 55 70 88 32 6 2 41 8 3 31 5 2 13 1 1 44 7 1 49 9 2 49 7 1 16 21 5 3 31 7 5 1 20 4 2 8 4 0 0 0 0 2 0 l 0) ing and because some totals include persons not shown separately 1 Less than 0.5 percent. N o t e : Sums of individual items may not equal totals because of round- T able 16. W eekly U nemployment B enefits of D isplaced P ottery W orkers, B oth Sexes and M ales , by State, 1962-63 Survey Both sexes Weekly unemployment benefit Ohio Total Num ber Per cent Num ber Per cent Males West Virginia Pennsylvania Num ber Num ber Per cent Per cent Total Num ber Ohio Per cent Num ber Per cent West Virginia Pennsylvania Num ber Num ber Per cent Total___ 1,067 100 571 100 414 100 82 100 532 100 260 100 227 100 $1S nr Ifiss $16 to $20- ___ $21 to $25_____ $26 to $30_____ $31 to $35_____ $36 to $40 $41 or more___ Unreported------ 67 110 162 146 253 75 80 174 7 10 15 14 24 7 7 16 21 40 69 97 88 39 80 137 4 7 12 17 15 7 14 24 45 67 87 42 142 11 16 21 10 34 1 3 6 7 23 36 1 4 8 9 28 44 6 7 4 3 6 25 64 34 77 47 1 1 2 10 25 13 30 19 5 6 8 10 58 7 3 3 5 9 38 11 14 16 11 14 19 23 131 31 15 18 27 49 202 60 77 84 29 13 Per cent 45 100 1 2 1 7 26 2 4 2 16 58 8 18 1N o t e : Because of rounding, sums of individual items m ay not equal totals. The New Job At the time of the response to part I of the questionnaire, which extended from October 1962 through March 1963, one-third of the men and one-fourth of the women were still looking for work (table 17). This category includes a small number who qualified the answer that they were employed, suggesting that they were looking for a full-time job while doing casual or part-time work or that they were tempo 66 rarily away (perhaps laid off) from their cur rent job. The situation was appreciably better among the workers who had worked at potteries other than Company Z, which, it will be recalled, had not shut down until late 1962. Nearly threefourths of these men and over two-fifths of these women were at work. About 15 percent of both the men and the women had either re tired or reported that they were unable to work, including a sizable number of women in the 45-64 age group. An additional one-fourth of the women reported they were “ doing own housework.” But about 1 of every 8 men and 1 of every 6 women were still looking for work, implying an unemployment rate of more than twice the national rate during the years 195862. Most of the difference may be attributable to the high proportion of workers age 45 and over among the pottery workers, even though many of those who had reached age 65 had left the labor force. Of those still in the labor force, about three-fourths were in this age group, compared with about two-fifths of the U.S. labor force. Nationally, this group has ac counted for 75-80 percent of all long-term un employment (15 weeks or more) in recent years.12 As for the former employees of Company Z, only 25 percent of the men and 7 percent of the women had found new jobs in the 2-5 month interval between layoff and answering the ques tionnaire. Two-thirds of the men and more than two-fifths of the women were still seeking work. But over half of the women had left the labor force. There was little further change in the overall employment situation by the time the workers answered part II of the questionnaire— from 1 to 5 months after completing part I.1 *1S1 Only 3 3 percent had changed from not working to work ing, and 4 percent from working (including the qualified answers) to not working. In fact, three-fifths of the respondents who were working had been on their current jobs (or businesses) for a year or more. 13 Information for both parts o f the questionnaire was obtained 12 See “ Long-Term Unemployment in the 1960’s,” Monthly Labor simultaneously from 68 workers through personal interview, as Review, September 1965, p. 1073. indicated in appendix B. T able 17. C u r r e n t L ab o r F orce S t a t u s o f D is p l a c e d P o t t e r y W o r k e r s b y S e x , A g e , a n d P o t t e r y E m p l o y e r G roup, 1962-63 Survey Male Both sexes Pottery employer group and current labor force status A ll P otteries All ages Under 45 years 45 to 64 years 65 years and over All ages Under 45 years Female 45 to 64 years 65 years and over All ages Under 45 years 45 to 64 years 65 years and over Number---------------------------Percent. _ ______________ 1,468 100 451 100 841 100 169 100 762 100 274 100 385 100 100 100 706 100 177 100 456 100 69 100 Working__________________________ Qualified answer1_________________ Not working._ ----------------- _ __ Total not working or qualifying answer: Number_______________ Percent. _____________ 44 2 55 52 1 47 46 2 52 11 1 88 54 2 44 61 1 38 59 3 38 15 1 84 32 2 66 38 2 60 35 2 64 4 1 94 829 100 217 100 456 100 151 100 352 100 108 100 158 100 85 100 477 100 109 100 298 100 66 100 Looking for work _____________ __ Believe no job opportunity_________ R etired _____________ ________ Unable to work____ _______________ Doing own housework____________ Other status or unreported_________ 49 1 16 5 27 2 63 1 53 2 7 6 32 15 70 1 20 5 (2) 3 89 83 3 6 7 21 1 1 34 1 13 5 46 1 38 2 68 4 11 1 38 1 7 6 48 8 2 62 3 24 2 Number---------------------------Percent_________ _________ 947 100 258 100 560 100 124 100 467 100 151 100 241 100 72 100 480 100 107 100 319 100 52 100 Working---------------------------------------Qualified answer___________________ Not working. ____________________ Total not working or qualifying answer: Number_______________ Percent. _____________ 58 2 40 74 2 24 61 3 36 10 2 87 72 3 26 85 2 13 80 3 17 14 3 83 45 2 53 57 2 41 47 2 51 6 2 92 398 100 68 100 216 100 111 100 132 100 22 100 47 100 62 100 266 100 46 100 169 100 49 100 31 1 27 8 31 2 41 1 39 1 11 10 38 7 1 77 4 9 3 42 2 41 10 (2) W 5 64 68 4 13 15 13 26 1 20 7 45 (2) 30 2 31 (2) ^ 10 9 49 Total: P otteries Other T han C ompany Z Total: Looking for work__________________ Believe no job opportunity Retired Unable to work-----------------------------Doing own housework Other status or unreported 4 28 4 9 41 7 (2) (2) 1 Answers suggesting that respondent was on temporary layoff or was looking for full-time job while doing casual or part-time work. 2Less than 0.5 percent. (2) 4 6 14 23 (2) 73 5 77 5 2 3 5 55 1 7 61 (2) 2 76 2 18 2 N ote: Sums o f individual items may not equal totals because o f rounding and because some totals include persons not shown separately since they did not report age. 67 Workers 1 Tenure in current employment Total ___________________ 3 years or m o r e -------------------2 years but under 3 y e a r s ___ 1% years but under 2 y e a r s ___ 1 year but under 1% y e a r s ____ 6 to 11 m o n t h s ______________ 1 to 5 m o n th s________________ Under 1 m o n th _______________ Unreported __________________ Number Percent 100 15 14 10 21 13 19 2 7 602 89 85 59 128 76 112 12 41 1 Excludes 63 workers who had been recalled to their pottery jobs; includes all others working at the time o f response o f part I o f questionnaire, whether for an employer or self-employed. Since 65 percent of them still held the first job they had gotten after leaving the pottery, tenure on the current job tended to be cor related with the date of separation from the pottery job.14 Nearly three-fourths of the employed workers had gotten their new jobs through leads from friends or relatives or by direct application to the employer, as shown in the following tabulation: Workers 1 Source o f job lead Total _________________________________ Friend or r e la tiv e __________________________ Application at plant (shop, office) _________ Former e m p loy er___________________________ Contact initiated by new e m p loy er_________ State employment se r v ic e ___________________ Labor union o f which a m em ber----------------Newspaper advertisem ent---------------------------O ther2 _____________________________________ Unreported ________________________________ Number 582 223 195 52 33 20 19 14 22 4 Percent 100 38 34 9 6 3 3 2 4 (3) 1 Excludes 63 workers recalled to their pottery jobs and 19 en gaged exclusively in self-employment. * Includes 18 workers employed on casual basis. 8 Less than 1 percent. These findings, in common with those of nu merous other sources, show little reliance on the public employment service, presumably for the conventional reasons. In situations like that ob served here, however, even intensive placement efforts apparently would be unavailing without action to develop jobs and surmount age bar riers. Type of Employment Of the 665 persons who were working (in cluding the 26 who gave qualified answers), all but 3 percent were working for an employer (on a casual basis in a few instances, such as housework by the day). Only 20 respondents were solely dependent on self-employment in a 14 The contingency coefficient o f the chi-square test o f 553 paired items was 0.60. 68 business or on a farm. An additional 19 persons were operating such an enterprise, as well as working for an employer. Of these 39, 25 were farming and 11 were operating a retail estab lishment of some kind— in all but two instances within 25 miles of the pottery community. These findings support Haber’s proposition that “ displaced workers become self-employed only in special instances.” 1 56 Few of the re spondents in this study appeared to have either the resources or the capacity for profitable selfemployment. Besides the 19 persons who worked for an employer as well as themselves, 30 others re ported holding two jobs. Specific secondary jobs (like “ pumping gas at a gas station” ) were reported by 16; 8 indicated some kind of casual employment, and 4 used the term “ odd jobs” to describe their secondary employment. Thus, although the extent of dual jobholding was slightly higher than that customarily observed in the periodic surveys of multiple jobholding,16 the subjects of this study were overwhelmingly dependent upon holding a single job. Of the 645 persons who were working for an employer, 35 percent held a job with the same occupational title as that from which they were separated. Half of these (63 in number) had been recalled to their pottery jobs— by a suc cessor company, in some cases. Some 17 per cent of the 645 had different jobs, although in the clay-products industry, which includes the manufacture of earthenware. The remainder (nearly half) were working in some other in dustry. Among the men, 13 percent were work ing at a different job in the clay-products industry and 52 percent were working in another industry. For the women, the respec tive percentages were 24 and 41. These dif ferences may reflect the nature of job openings or a more extensive job search by the men. The three potteries (S, T, and X ) that were outside the area within 35 miles of East Liver pool accounted for 259 of the laid-off pottery workers who had found jobs with an employer. These potteries had all been dissolved and had been located beyond convenient commuting dis15 The Impact o f Technological Change (Kalamazoo, Mich., The Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, September 1963), p. 37. 16 See, for example, “ Multiple Jobholders in May 1963,*’ Monthly Labor Review, March 1964, pp. 249-257. tance of other potteries (at least those in the study). Only half as many of these workers had the same job or another job in the clayproducts industry— 26 percent compared with 52 percent of the total. For the former em ployees of the 10 other potteries, the comparable figure was 68 percent. Thus, in areas where pottery or similar jobs were available, fully two-thirds of the workers went back to work at jobs with which they had some familiarity. Those who took jobs in other industries most commonly reported they were working as laborers. Other occupations mentioned fre quently were janitor (custodian), aide or kitchen worker in a hospital, store clerk, domes tic or related work, guard, gas station at tendant, bartender, and truckdriver (or cabdriver). A significant number of respondents reported various jobs that suggest conventional factory operations. Finally, hospitals, asylums, and similar types of institutions seemed to pro vide large number of jobs for these workers. In their own opinion, a majority of the workers (51 percent) had jobs that required about the same skill as their pottery jobs.17 Some 24 percent said they needed less skill, 21 percent more, and 4 percent said they could not compare the skills. The comparisons reported by men and women did not differ significantly. Since large numbers of the former pottery workers had held unskilled or semiskilled jobs, little decline might have been expected in the skill level of their new jobs. There was, however, some decline in the wage rates on the new jobs, although the median wage classes were the same as for the pottery jobs. Somewhat more of the men who had earned $2.50 or more an hour in the pottery had found new jobs than the lower paid men, but there was not much of a tendency for men to maintain their relative wage standing.18 The principal shift in the distribution of the men’s wage rates was from the $1.50-$2.24 brackets toward the lower end of the wage scale (table 18). Among the women, a marked increase in 17 Their answers were not related to the skill classifications o f their pottery jobs (table 6) because it is doubtful that their judg ment o f skill differentials would coincide with the standards under lying the Dictionary o f Occupational Titles, which was used to classify the pottery jobs. 18 Direct comparisons fo r 317 men showed a contingency coefficient o f 0.52 in the chi-square test o f significance. the proportion earning less than $1.25 an hour occurred at the expense of the $1.25-$1.74 brackets, but again relative standing generally was not maintained.19 Individual comparisons for those who re ported their wages on both jobs showed that 40 percent were earning less on the new job, and 32 percent were earning more. The most ex treme deterioration in wages occurred among respondents identified with the three potteries (S, T, and X ) outside the East Liverpool area, who, it will be recalled, had more frequently found jobs outside the clay-products industry. Wage reductions were nearly 1% times more numerous among this group, being reported by 57 percent of those who were employed. The disproportionate wage cuts may indicate in ferior job opportunities in the less urbanized areas of the region, especially for workers who lack experience in the kind of work that is to be had. Lower wage rates on the new job did not necessarily entail a proportionate reduction in weekly earnings. As the following tabulation shows, three-fourths of both the men and women reported working at least 40 hours a week on the new job: Workers 1 Weekly hours of work Total _ More than 42 41-42 _______ 40 __________ 35-39 _______ 80-34 _______ 20-29 _______ 10-19 _______ Less than 10 . Unreported — Number 552 130 7 280 34 25 20 7 5 44 Percent 100 24 1 51 6 5 4 1 1 8 1 Excludes a few employed workers who responded to part I but not part II o f questionnaire; see appendix B. N ote: Because o f rounding, sums o f individual items may not equal totals. Especially for the women, the new jobs re presented a substantially longer workweek. In fact, when asked about the comparative steadi ness of their current employment and their pottery jobs, only 10 percent of both men and women answered less steady; 57 percent re plied more steady. 19 Correlation was not tested separately for women, but the con tingency coefficient o f comparisons for a combined total o f the 317 men (see preceding footnote) and 168 women was slightly lower (0.48) than that for men alone. 69 T able 18. H o u r l y W a g e R a t e s o n C u r r e n t J ob a n d o n P o t t e r y J ob for R e e m p l o y m e n t D is p l a c e d P o t t e r y W o r k e r s , b y S e x , 1962-63 S u r v e y Current job Hourly wage rates Male Both sexes Number Pottery job Percent Number Female Percent Number Both sexes Male Percent Number Percent Number Female Percent Number Percent Total---------------------------------- 552 100 362 100 190 100 552 100 362 100 190 100 Less than $1.25___________________ $1.25 to $1.49_____________________ $1.50 to $1.74_____________________ $1.75 to $1.99_____________________ $2.00 to $2.24_____________________ $2.25 to $2.49_____________________ $2.50 to $2.74_____________________ $2.75 to $2.99_____________________ $3.00 or more_____________________ Other (as, on salary)______________ Unreported_______________________ 68 61 115 94 58 34 26 17 29 28 22 12 11 21 17 11 6 5 3 5 5 4 21 38 55 64 48 32 25 17 28 18 16 6 11 15 18 13 9 7 5 8 5 4 47 23 60 30 10 2 1 25 12 32 16 5 1 10 55 157 114 72 36 26 14 43 4 21 2 10 28 21 13 7 5 3 8 46 4 66 95 63 33 25 14 43 4 11 1 1 18 26 17 9 7 4 12 1 3 6 51 91 19 9 3 1 3 27 48 10 5 2 The location of their new jobs was, however, somewhat less convenient for a sizable number of the reemployed. One-third of the men and one-fourth of the women were working outside the community where they had worked in the pottery (table 19). Generally, the distances from the pottery job were not great. Less than 10 percent had gone more than 50 miles afield. As might have been expected, this group was predominantly comprised of men. T able 5 3 0) 4 19. 1962-63 Survey Both sexes Num ber Total___________________________________ Comparative job location Both sexes Num ber Male Per cent Per cent Num ber Female Per cent Num ber Per cent Total_________ 645 100 409 100 236 100 Same city___________ Outside of city: 25 miles or less__ 25-50 miles_____ 50-100 miles____ More than 100 miles_____ Unreported__________ 449 70 272 67 177 75 111 25 33 17 4 5 69 22 27 17 5 7 42 3 6 18 1 3 4 16 3 4 7 1 23 4 Q) (2) 3 (2) 1 Distances are as-the-crow-flies. They were calculated by applying a compass to an ordinary highway map. 2 Less than 0.5 percent. to do likewise on their new jobs and for those who lived closer to the pottery to have a new job not far from home.20 20 The contingency coefficient o f the chi-square test o f significance between 524 paired items was 0.66. Male Num ber P o t t e r y J ob , D is p l a c e d Pottery job Female Per cent P ottery Num ber Both sexes Per cent Num ber Per cent Male Num ber Female Per cent Num ber Per cent 552 100 362 100 190 100 552 100 362 100 190 100 85 55 97 86 50 68 58 32 21 15 10 18 15 9 12 11 6 4 47 36 67 58 29 39 43 30 13 13 10 19 16 8 11 12 8 4 38 19 30 28 21 29 15 2 8 20 10 16 14 12 15 8 1 4 109 63 122 74 60 65 30 20 9 20 11 22 13 11 12 5 4 2 69 36 81 51 37 44 21 18 5 19 10 22 14 10 12 6 5 1 40 27 41 23 23 21 9 2 4 21 14 22 12 12 11 5 1 2 N ote: Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. 70 5 i Current job Less than H mile______________________________ Yl mile but less than 1 mile_____________________ 1 mile_________________________________________ 2-3 miles______________________________________ 4-5 miles________ ______________________________ 6-10 miles- ___________________________________ 11-25 miles____________________________________ More than 25 miles- _ -------------------------------------Unreported____________________________________ 10 C o m p a r a t iv e L o c a t io n of C u r r e n t J ob a n d C o m p a r a t iv e D is t a n c e T r a v e l e d to W o r k o n C u r r e n t J ob a n d W o r k e r s , b y S e x , 1962-63 S u r v e y Distance traveled (0 P o t t e r y J ob , D is p l a c e d P o t t e r y W o r k e r s , b y S e x , Naturally, then, there were few pronounced differences in the distances traveled to work at the new job and at the old job. (See table 20.) Most notably, the percentage of men traveling over 10 miles nearly doubled. There was also some increase in the proportion of women traveling 6-25 miles. Individual comparisons disclosed a moderate tendency for those who traveled relatively long distances to the pottery 20. (i) N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. 1Less than 0.5 percent. T able 0) 1 10 6 Attitudes and Aspirations As a supplement to the factual information about the “ before and after” situation of the laid-off pottery workers, some attempt was made to assess reactions of a less tangible or more personal nature to their changed status. Dissatisfaction with their present employ ment situation was evident in their responses to questions about their interest in job training and their willingness to move if they were offered a job comparable to their pottery work. With respect to training, about three-fourths of the men and two-thirds of the women expressed interest, although a sizable proportion of this group had reservations, as shown in the follow ing tabulation: Both sexes Interest in training T o t a l____________ Yes ____________________ Yes, with reservations__ No and u n re p o rte d ____ Num ber P er cent Female Male Num ber P er cent Num ber Willingness to accept Both sexes P ercent 1,303 100 676 100 627 100 549 406 348 42 31 27 321 197 158 48 29 23 228 209 190 37 34 30 N ote: Because o f rounding, sums o f items may not equal totals. By far, the most frequent reason underlying the reservations about training was advanced age. Other commonly specified reasons were health, and possible location of the training program. Number Female Number Total ____________ Yes ____________________ Yes, with reservations__ No and u n rep orted ____ 1,303 100 676 100 627 100 249 419 638 19 32 49 183 234 259 27 35 38 63 185 379 10 30 60 P er- Num- Perber cent cent Thus, about two-fifths of the men and threefifths of the women were not willing to move (including those who did not report, which was assumed to indicate unwillingness). Since the reasons for their unwillingness to move given by this group in some instances could be classified only by inference, the follow ing array of the frequency with which different reasons were reported must be regarded as an approximation: Reason for reservation P er cent Male job elsewhere at pottery rate-of-pay Frequency class Homeownership ____________________________________ 150-200 125-150 Considerations o f distance, location, or clim a te ____ Wages would be too l o w ___________________________ 50-75 Cannot afford to move _______________________________ 50-75 Spouse works within area o f present residen ce____ 50-75 Present job (or work) is satisfactory ______________ 50-75 Preference for not leaving present area o f residence50-75 Poor health ___________________________________________ 50-75 Retired _______________________________________________ 50-75 Disadvantaged by advanced age _____________________ 50-75 Contingent upon type or physical conditions o f work 50-75 Children in school in area o f present residence_____ 25-50 Steadiness o f proposed j o b ____________________________ 25-50 Cost o f living at new job lo ca tio n ____________________ 25-50 Most frequently (on the order of 175-200 of those interested), the former pottery workers expressed a desire for any kind of training that would lead to successful employment. Specific occupations in which training was most often desired included mechanic and practical nurse (frequency order of 30-40), machinist and electronic work (20-30), and welder, carpenter, home appliance repairman, elec trician, and plumber (10-20). As indicated, the most prominent reason for un willingness to move was homeownership. This, as well as a good many of the other reasons shown, suggests a lack of sensitivity even to a somewhat higher wage that might be earned elsewhere. Although it is uncertain that these workers would have the same reaction to a bona fide job offer as to a hypothetical question, it seems reasonable to infer that jobs must be brought to the worker, rather than vice versa, if many of the unemployed pottery workers are to find employment. Substantial, although smaller, proportions of the workers said they would be willing to move out of the area in order to get a job at the same rate of pay received in the pottery. Only a fourth of the men and a tenth of the women were willing without reservations, and about a third of both men and women expressed re servations, as shown below: In comments which the respondents were in vited to make at the end of the questionnaire, many of them expressed grievances against pottery management, the Government, city of ficials and other functionaries, the Potters’ union, certain kinds of pottery employees, and the employment situation in the area. Very few indicated an optimistic outlook. 71 The following sampling of these comments is believed to be representative, although it may be somewhat biased toward the more interesting and dramatic: Jobs at the potteries and put more people to work (male, age-class— 62-64, marital status unreported). If people past 65 would retire, it would create many jobs in the pottery industry. In my trade alone there are many past 70 still working. I am still a young man (44) but I have tried many places other than pottery work and they tell me I am too old (male, ageclass— 35-44, married). When I was laid off I only had 12 years of seniority. Now the ------ (pottery) has decorators (a highly skilled job classification) laid off with 20 years of seniority (female, age-class— 65 and over, married). I’m laid off again due to a new automatic packer put in use at t h e ------ (pottery). So I probably will have to use up the rest of my savings (male, age-class— 45-54, married). When an order is gotten by the potteries, there is a grand rush “ to get it out.” Then there is more unem ployment for everyone because many are hired for a short period; but then all but a few are laid off (male, age-class— 45-54, married). . . . due to a machine called a hot press which puts out more ware than the decal girls did by hand. This machine has replaced six decal machines which op erated with seven girls for each decal machine (female, age-class— 55-61, married). We people of the fo rm e r------ (pottery) cannot un derstand the company’s reason for liquidating its busi ness because of foreign imports and labor costs when the other potteries around here, in Salem, Sebring, East Palestine, Lincoln, 111.; and more are working to capacity (male, age-class— 45-54, married). . . . due to foreign imports, mainly Japanese ware (this city) is nothing compared to what it was. We used to have around 35 potteries (in the general area) but now we have only 6. So you can see what Japanese imports have done to our community. I think the Government should pay a quota to all industries hurt by Japanese imports (male, age-class— 45-54, married). Employment at t h e ------ (pottery) a t ------ (city) is very satisfactory. I have been receiving premium hours almost ever since the ------ (pottery) started to op erate. The supervision has been very good, and we all look forward to a very prosperous future (male, ageclass— 62-64, married). I go t o ------ (city) to work at my trade every day in the pottery there— 84 miles away (female, age-class— 55-61, married). The work at most of the potteries, especially -----(pottery), is very uncertain. One month you have good work and all at once you are laid off. One year you may work 3 months, the next 9 or 10. You never know what to expect (male, age-class— 62-64, married). They should pass a law for social security people to be laid off first. At the pottery . . . half of the people who had most seniority were drawing social secu rity. . . . I realize it may be hard for people to live on social security, but they . . . have a certain amount of income that they can depend upon. . . . We have nothing when our unemployment compensation expires (female, age-class— 35-44, married). Seventy percent of the pottery workers have their wives working. At least 30 percent of the wives work in potteries. Lack of seniority in a slack period causes a layoff which amounts to about 30 percent of the workers. This group will not average over 20 hours a week over a 12-month period (male, age-class— 65 and over, married). At present the employees a t ------ (pottery) are from out of town, from an area of 15 to 20 miles. The women of ------ (this city) are unemployed. I think they should hire local help (female, age-class— 62-64, not married). I am working at ------ (pottery). We are working overtime most every week. Stop it (the overtime work) 72 Last year, 1962, I worked at four different jobs and in three different States to make $6,000. Three of those jobs were kiln-placing. The other was with the steel company. I don’t like to work this way, but because of the insecurity of the potteries, I have to work this way or just quit looking for work and draw unemployment compensation (male, age-class— 45-54, not married). Pottery Jobs and the Rule of Seniority I am a gold stamper. There is no job o f this kind at present. Under the seniority of the Potters’ union I must stick to my own trade. If no stamping, no work. Do you think this rule is right? I have worked there about 7 years, and yet a new employee can come in and get a job in preference to me. I am a member in good standing, yet (male, age-class— 62-64, married). In my opinion, the main trouble is seniority in the pottery industry. Prior to 1958, any journeyman or person who served his apprenticeship after 6 months of work in any plant was considered a steady employee. According to the union contract, anyone hired (there after) was considered a temporary employee and was not entitled to an equal amount of work regardless of his term of employment. This discouraged many quali fied persons from seeking work in the pottery industry. The result was, that in the case of a heavy onslaught of orders, the plants were forced to hire unqualified and unfit workers to fill the orders. . . . No person is going to do his best and keep a place going, when he has nothing to look forward to but the street when there is the slightest slowdown. The workers themselves are at fault, as well as the potteries (male, age-class — 35-44, not married). Employment Conditions Generally When the jobs of 200-250 persons are taken out of a small town like ------ (city), the effect is bound to be bad. Many of these persons are past middle age, and few possess skills in other lines of work. . . . In this community coal mining used to be a major in dustry. Automation has cost most of these jobs. . . . Quite a bit of money coming in is derived from pen sions, social security, etc. The younger men find work in Zanesville, Newark, and as far away as Columbus. The pottery industry is limping along, with little or no workers being added. . . . The chinaware industry was told, at the time the tariff cuts started, that if the tariff hurt, there would be relief of some sort. The tariff did not hurt us, it murdered us (male, age-class— 62-64, married). As it is now, if you don't work in a steel mill, you work in a pottery. These firms are the only half-way decent jobs around this vicinity, and the work isn't steady (male, age-class—20-24, married). . . . . I wouldn't complain now if I could just find any work. I'd work any hours. Of course, we live on what my husband makes, but with four children at home I can't find any job except for 2 days a week. In order to have anything extra, a wife has to work (female, age-class— 35-44, married). I see no future for a young man in this area. The older workers have trades and there is no chance to get into one. The older tradesmen have enough work for themselves, but not enough to put on apprentices (male, age-class— 25-34, married). I can’t make enough on either one of my jobs alone to support my family. . . . I've been trying to sell my house, hoping it will help me over until I can find something more secure (male, age-class— 45-54, mar ried). Wages around------ (city) for both men and women are very low, and you more or less have to take a job wherever you can get it, no matter what the wages, as you have to live; and if you don't take the work, someone else will (male, age-class— 35-44, married). Unemployment is more or less what a person makes it. With few exceptions, if a person is ambitious enough to always be willing to learn something new, he can always find work— perhaps not what he wants right now, but take a substitute job and work your self into something more suitable. . . . When the pottery closed, there were many who had never worked any place else. These people were hit very hard. Some of them were never able to adapt themselves to another occupation (female, age-class— 35-44, not married). . . . I've been everywhere I know of to go looking for work. So far, nothing. You have to have experience or they won't even talk to you. I've been as far as Port Clinton, Ohio; Pascanda, Md.; up in Pennsylvania, and as far as Tennessee. They all say the same thing —we have people laid off. Come back in the spring. Maybe we can use you. . . . I have a little over $300 left to draw out, and then—nothing. And it won't take long for it to go. I can's even meet all my expenses (female, age-class— 35-44, not married). Work around------ (city) is scarce, especially if you are past 35 years of a ge.------ (company) is our biggest plant, but they hire so many women. Also they hire, layoff, hire, and layoff so often. The State hospital, where I work, is a mainstay, but wages there are low. It used to be a farmers' and older peoples' job, but now young people have to use it to keep a family. . . . The last 3 or 4 years at the pottery, we were off work so much that I used all my savings. So when the plant finally shut down for good, all I had left was what I had in my dinner bucket (male, age-class— 3544, married). Where I am now employed is far below the -----(pottery) in many respects. First, it is nonunion and working conditions are not as good as they were at ------ (pottery). . . . There is no chance for advance ment (female, age-class— 45-54, married). Older Workers The main trouble I ran into when I became un employed was the factories around here have an age limit and if you are over 35, it was impossible to get hired. . . . They seemed to say that in all these pen sion plans, they had made it too expensive to hire anyone over this age limit. . . . Pity the poor guys that are in their forties, if they get out of a job by a factory going out o f business, unless they are ex ceptionally well-trained in some trade that has a short age of men (male, age-class— 62-64, married). I found out that the older man does not have much of a chance in industry here. The older man who loses his job, as the potters did, has to take inferior jobs that the young men won't have, such as janitor or driving trucks, etc. I am working for half as much as I made in the pottery. Even the retraining programs here are not taking the older men . . . It is tragic to work your whole life as a skilled worker in an industry and when you get over 50 years old, they go out of business. Thousands of us potters have had that ex perience (male, age-class— 55-61, married). If we could get some kind of factory work at -----(city)— that would hire men over 50 who are still able to do a day's work. I made three trips per week for 5 Y2 months to one particular pottery in town, and I had three trades. . . . When they hired, they hired from 18 to 22 years old, with no experience. Their explanation was that insurance on older men was too high. My work at present is seasonal, and I'll be out of work until spring opens up (male, age-class— 55-61, married). Many were not hired back when t h e ------ (company) took over. Many were new help who had never worked in a pottery. After all these years, the pottery union finally has a pension plan, but it is too late for me even though I have worked 40 years. I'm sure I am 73 not alone. I don’t know what men over 45 are going to do to exist (male, age-class— 55-61, married). Work is very hard to get in ------ (city), for the older women. There is a need for some kind of factory here—maybe a garment factory would be the answer. The only thing that is offered to us is domestic work (female, age-class— 55-61, not married). I am 58 years old and my husband is 55 years old, and they say we are too old and they don’t want us. What are we going to do until we are 62 years old? Why don’t they bring social security down to 55 years old so that we can have something to live on (female, age-class— 55-61, married). Young Persons and Employment There just isn’t enough employment to take care of the high school student just graduated, or otherwise. My oldest son, age 20, left town to get employment, in a larger city. My youngest 18% graduated last year, has been unable to get employment thus far (female, age-class— 35-44, married). Most of the young people with whom I am acquainted are still looking for jobs, and most of them are married. Everywhere you go it is the same old story, everything is slow and people are laid off. . . . This leads me to believe there is only one alternative, and that is to take some special training and learn a good trade, but without government help I feel this is impossible, for the people I know just don’t have enough money (male, age-class— 20-24, not married). Working Away From Home . . . . We own our own house in Middlebourne, which is 108 miles fr o m ------ (city). So I rented a room in ------ (city) and “ batched” there, coming home every weekend—because we could not sell our property here and get enough for it to buy there. Besides, we always raised our own garden and preserved much of our food . . . (male, age-class— 55-61 married). ------ (pottery), where I work now, I could quit any time. I would like to get something at home. By the time I pay my room and board, it’s just about the same as unemployment compensation. ------ (home city) hasn’t enough jobs for men (male, age-class— 35-44, married). We had to cash in our insurance to help carry us over the slack period a ft e r ------ (pottery) shut down. . . . Have worked the last few weeks in Jittsburgh— over 100 miles per day. . . . This is only temporary work. . . . Home still up for sale. Hoping to get some where to get steady employment (male, age-class— 45-54, married). Attraction of Industry It seems to me that it would make more sense to bring the industry to the people than to have the people 74 go to the industry, especially since most of them wish to live where they are now living (male, age-class— 5561, married). This area at one time was the pottery center of the world. . . . With companies which are looking for sites, this section had a lot of possibilities to move ahead— it just needs some push by a few go-getters. . . . The money going overseas to help others is for the birds. We need help in this area and need it now (male, ageclass—35-44, married). Resentment Against City Functionaries We have a town here that wants you to pay a city wage tax, but they won’t help you find employment, (male, age-class— 35-44, married). We have one of the highest rates of boys-in-trouble with the law there is. The record shows that most of these boys are not working or have never worked be cause they cannot find jobs. . . . What is our Chamber of Commerce doing? A big fiat nothing. There is no new business coming into our area; only the old ones moving out with empty buildings like a ghost town, which is actually what it is slowly becoming. . . . I have looked for work and am offered a babysitting job at the rate of $10-15 per week, for 8 hours’ work. This area consists of beer taverns, stores, and restau rants, and gas stations— everyplace to spend your money, but no place to make money (female, age-class — 45-54, married). Years ago the old Chamber of Commerce which was under the thumb o f the pottery manufacturers would not allow other industry to come in here. The Chamber today is made up, I think, of some very good men that could not be kept under a thumb. They are interested in a variety of things, as well as potteries. I’m sure they do all they can to bring in new industries (female, age-class— 55-61, not married). ------ (city) is a distressed area if there ever was one, and the Chamber of Commerce wants to keep it that way so that they can pay $1.00 for labor for what little work there is (male, age-class— 45-54, married). Social Security I have been to the hospitals, laundries, lunchrooms, and hotels, but no one seems to need anyone in -----(city). I have also asked the other potteries in West Virginia. My unemployment will run out in June. What am I supposed to do then? I cant get my social security for 7 years (female, age-class— 55-61, not married). Unemployment compensation Why can the State of Ohio pay a pottery worker with three dependents $40 a week and the State of West Virginia pay a worker $17 a week doing the same work with the same number of dependents? . . . Since I left the ------ (pottery) in 1959, I have not worked for 21 months and have worked at two different pot teries up to this present time (male, age-class—20-24, married). The unemployment situation in this area is poor for the amount of population we have. If you don’t have a high school education and are over the age of 40, you are out of luck. . . . The unemployment compensa tion in West Virginia is very low compared to Ohio. $32 is the most you can get in 1 week. I know a man who is unemployed in Ohio, who never made the amount I did last year, but still he gets more unemployment than I do (male, age-class— 35-44, married). As for the unemployment office i n ------ (city ), I have signed for work at this office four different times in the past 10 years and have never received a call at any time for a job. I am skilled at a variety of jobs but never was called. Anyone you talk to who has been unemployed will tell you it’s a waste of time to go to the unemployment office unless it is to sign up for benefits. I really think this office for unemployment is a waste of the taxpayers’ money as far as -----(city) is concerned, unless you are a woman looking for work. I understand they do get work for friends (male, age-class— 35-44, not married). Training . . . . Massillon, Canton, and Youngstown, and some others have retraining programs. Why isn’t there one set up here to take care of the people around here? I understand these programs are set up for people when automation takes over their jobs. But what about us, where a foreign country takes over our jobs and we can’t do anything about it? Do we have to go to Japan or Germany to find work? (Male, age-class— 55-61, married.) I’ve tried every place around here and they say they don’t need anybody. I’ve tried at two potteries, the state road, and have my application in with t h e -----(county) board of education for a janitor’s job. They all have the same answer, “ We don’t need anybody.” I’d certainly like to get into some training program (male, age-class—45-54, married). There are still things I can learn to do, but we live too far to go to trade school in Canton in bad weather. And there is no bus to take you. I don’t drive, and my husband doesn’t drive at night in bad weather (female, age-class— 55-61, married). . . . . The good paying jobs around------ (city) are for people with experience. I have tried to get a better paying job, but the first thing they ask you is how much experience do you have . . . If they don’t give people like me a chance to get experience, how do we get it? So we don’t have any choice but to take a job in the pottery where wages are low. One sure thing, if there were a school around here where we could go learn a trade, I would be one of the first through the door (male, age-class— 25-34, married). I have already applied for practical nurses’ training in Pittsburgh, Pa. The man came to interview me, but since I have no income except my unemployment com pensation, which will be out in a few weeks, I told the man to hold my application until I might be able to enter training. That was in November 1962; and up to now conditions are no better, so I may have to give up the idea (female, age-class— 45-54, not married). I am starting today, March 25, 1963, to take nurses’ aid training at a Government training course (female, age-class— 45-54, not married). 75 Appendix B. Methodology Mailings of part I of the questionnaire (ap pendix B) revealed that 393 of the 2,194 former pottery employees whose names and addresses were compiled (as described in Background of the Study, pp. 54-55) either could not or would not respond— the nonviables. This left a group of 1,801 viable respondents, that is, persons who presumably were available at the address of record and who had not indicated that they would not cooperate in the survey. Of this group, 401 proved to be nonrespondents to part I of the questionnaire, but 68 of these ulti mately became respondents (to both parts of the questionnaire) as a result of personal inter views with a sample of the part I nonrespond ents. Thus, 1,468 were respondents to the part I questionnaire. But 165 of these did not respond to part II of the questionnaire, for which the information is accordingly limited to 1,303 re spondents. Nonrespondents Many of the reasons for not completing the questionnaire given by the nonviable group applied also to the sample of nonrespondents selected for personal interview. In fact, if such reasons had been established through the mail survey rather than by personal interview, all of the nonrespondents would have been clas sified as nonviable. The circumstances of the two groups are shown in table A - l. In both cases, the largest single reason for nonresponse was a deficiency of some kind in the mailing address of record which could not be remedied by diligent inquiry. The list of nonviables, but not of nonrespond ents, included a large number of persons who were outside the scope o f the survey. While some of the nonviables who had quit may have done so in contemplation of layoff, it was decided that further pursuit would be too com plicated and would be unlikely to salvage more than a few of these subjects. Nearly all of the 100 nonviables who re fused to participate because their pottery job had been temporary are traceable to 3 of the 13 potteries. This suggests that for some com 76 panies the mailing list included workers on the extra list, whereas for other companies the mailing lists apparently included only those who had been in the basic work force. It appears unlikely that failure to obtain completed questionnaires from either the non viables or the nonrespondents produced any gross distortion in the study’s representation of the various potteries that had made the layoffs. With respect to pottery employer, the coefficient of correlation between viables and nonviables is .857; that is, the pottery which accounted for the largest number of viables also accounted for the largest number of nonviables, and so forth. Similarly, the coefficient between the 1,468 respondents and the 401 nonrespondents to part I from which the personal interview sample was selected was .854. Furthermore, the coefficient of correlation between the 165 part II nonrespondents and the 1,303 part II re spondents was .903. Distribution of Respondents The distribution of the part I— respondents by pottery from which separated, as well as the organizational status o f the pottery and the period in which most of the separations oc curred, as shown in table A -2. The distribution for part II respondents is so similar that it is not presented separately. For purposes of identifying the part I re spondents by the location of the potteries from which they were separated, one should locate the city of East Liverpool on the eastern edge of Ohio and the two towns directly across the Ohio River in West Virginia— Chester and Newell. This city and these towns in combination are designated here as the East Liverpool area. Five of the potteries in this study are (or were) located in that area, and about 43 percent of the respondents are identifi able with it. Within a radius of approximately 35 miles of East Liverpool are five more pot teries and 26 percent of the respondents of the study. A circle of these dimensions centered on East Liverpool would encompass such promi nent steel-producing cities as Youngstown, Pittsburgh (or its western-most suburbs), and Weirton; Wheeling lies just outside the perim eter. Farther away from East Liverpool to the southwest can be located three more of the potteries, which accounted for 31 percent of the respondents in this study. All of these were dissolved; two were in small cities and the third in a town. Personal Interviews For the customary interviews of nonrespond ents, limited finances dictated that the 165 part II nonrespondents be abandoned because a good T able A -l. deal was known about them from their re sponses to part I of the questionnaire. The in formation on their work status, shown in table A-3, led to this decision. The additional infor mation that might have been obtained in part II of the questionnaire presumably would have been minimal for about 36 percent of the non respondents: those who reported unable to work, retired, doing own housework, recalled to pottery, and the “ other” category (as “ in Armed Forces” ). Horeover, it was believed that some of the married women who reported, looking for work, might prove on further in vestigation to be doing their own housework or C ir c u m s t a n c e s o p n o n v i a b i l i t y or n o n r e s p o n s e , 1962-63, su r vey o f d is p l a c e d pottery w orkers Nonviability established by mail survey, 1962-63 Nonresponse to personal interview, summer 1963 Number of persons Percent Number of persons Percent 393 100.0 i 114 100.0 109 27 119 67 18 28 6 27.7 6.9 30.2 17.0 4.6 7.1 1.5 43 4 7 37.7 3.5 6.1 100 16 12 7 25.4 4.1 3.1 1.8 3 9 17 6 15 8 11 43 14.9 5.3 13.2 7.0 9.6 2.6 Circumstances Total___________ _____ ________ __ _____________ Person could not be located 2_ _ ______________ ______ _____ __ __________________________ _ _ Deceased_________________________ _____ ________ __ Beyond scope of survey________________________________________________________________ _ __ __ Quit, rather than laid off___________ _____ ____________________________ ______ Retired, rather than laid off_________________________________ ________ Not a production or maintenance worker at pottery____ ________ __ _______ Listed by 2 potteries as former employee_____________________________ _____________ _ _ i I Not interested because: Pottery job was temporary or part-time_____________ __ __________________________ __ Person had retired or was unable to work__________________ _______ __ ________________ Person at work *________________________________________ ____ _____ __ _________ ________ No resaon specified___________________________________________ __________ ____ _________ Not at home on each call by interviewer______________ ____________ _____________ __ _____ Other.................................................................................. 1Excludes 68 persons who completed both parts of the questionnaire during the interview. 2Includes: moved, leaving no forwarding address, mail unclaimed, insufficient address, unknown at address, traveling abroad or in Armed Forces, address beyond territorial jurisdiction of interviewer. * All of these persons had been recalled to the pottery. 4This group regarded the questionnaire as too personal. N ote : Dashes indicate information not available or not applicable. Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. T a b l e A-2. D is t r i b u t io n o f r e s p o n d e n t s to p a r t I o f q u e s t io n n a ir e , b y p o t t e r y f r o m w h i c h s e p a r a t e d , MODEL PERIOD (S ) OF SEPARATIONS, AND STATUS OF POTTERY, 1962-63 SURVEY OF DISPLACED POTTERY WORKERS Respondents to part I separated from designated pottery Status and designation of pottery Modal period(s) of separations Men Women Number Percent Number Percent Number 1,468 100.0 762 100.0 706 0.0 6/59, 11/60 None None 12/60, 11/61 56/62 6/61, 11-12/61 11-12/60 43 21 19 37 123 58 12 2.9 1.4 1.2 2.5 8.3 3.9 0.8 1 10 4 23 55 13 8 0.1 1.3 0.4 3.0 7.2 1.7 1.0 42 11 15 14 68 45 4 5.9 1.5 2.1 1.9 9.6 6.3 0.5 1-2/61, 4-5/61 5/58 10/59, 1/60 67-8/60 12/60-1/61 10-12/62 90 111 63 255 115 521 6.1 7.5 4.2 17.3 7.8 35.4 43 65 23 166 56 295 5.5 8.5 3.0 21.7 7.3 38.7 47 46 40 89 59 226 66 6.5 5.6 12.6 8.3 32.0 T ota l-_____________________________________________ Undissolved potteries: Company A __________________________ __ _ __ _ ____ Company B___________________________________________ Company C___________ ______________________________ Company D _________________ ______________ ______ Company E___________________________________________ Company F ______________ __________________ ______ Company G___________________________________________ Dissolved potteries: Company S ______________ __________________ ___ Company T ___________________ ____ ____________ ___ Company W __________________ __ __________ ____ Company X ___________________________________________ Company Y______ ____________________________________ Company Z _______________ ___ _______ ________ Both sexes Percent N ote: Because of rounding, sums of items may not equal totals. 77 not actively searching for work because they believed there was no job opportunity. Further support for abandoning any attempt to inter view part II nonrespondents was obtained in cidentally in the process of collecting informa tion on the part II questionnaire. At that time, it was learned that, of the 165 nonrespondents, 6 had moved away; 6 refused to cooperate, 2 without explanation, 2 because they were work ing, and 2 because they had been recalled to the pottery; 2 were deceased; 1 had retired; and 1 had entered the Armed Forces. For these reasons, available funds were used to investigate the 401 nonrespondents to part I of the questionnaire, about whom nothing was known. Pilot interviews suggested that: (a) fewer than half of the nonrespondents would have telephones and would thus be exceedingly difficult to contact and (b) two-thirds would not respond to a personal interview. Based on standard procedures, resources would permit interview calls upon about 175 of the total of 401 nonrespondents. A sample of 182 persons was chosen at random, and these names were allocated among eight interviewers. With one exception, each of the 182 persons could be identified with 1 of the 8 cities chosen as bases of operation for the interviews: Canonsburg, Pa., and seven cities in Ohio— Cambridge, Coshocton, Crooksville, East Palestine, Salem, Steubenville, and of course, East Liverpool. The survey director, Professor Levinson, was one of the inter viewers. Each of the other seven was associ ated with one of the remaining cities. All were male public school teachers who had been rec ommended to the survey director by their respective superintendents of public schools. 78 The interviews were conducted in the summer of 1963, when the interviewers were free of their school duties. As previously indicated, 114 of the 182 in the interview sample did not complete the ques tionnaire, for reasons presented in table B -l. The 68 who did respond to the questionnaire constituted 37.4 percent of the sample of 182. This percentage is consistent with the response rate that might have been predicted had an attempt been made to contact personally all 401 nonrespondents. Applying the appropriate mathematical formula enables one to say with confidence of 95 percent accuracy that between 32.1 and 42.9 percent of the 401 would have responded affirmatively.21 In short, one can be highly confident that between 129 and 172 of the 401 persons would have filled out the ques tionnaire. T able A-3. n a ir e I n f o r m a t io n from part I o f q u e s t io n ON WORK STATUS OF PART I I NONRESPONDENTS, 1962-63 SURVEY OF DISPLACED POTTERY WORKERS Both sexes Work status Num ber Per cent Male Num ber Female Per cent Num ber Per cent Total_________ 165 100 86 100 79 100 Unable to work------Retired_____________ Doing own housework Looking for work____ Believe there is no job opportunity___ Recalled to pottery__ Working____________ Other_______________ Unreported__________ 5 24 16 27 3 14 10 16 1 14 1 16 15 17 4 10 16 12 5 13 20 15 2 13 76 1 1 1 8 46 1 1 6 48 1 1 7 56 1 1 2 7 28 2 9 35 N ote : Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals. 21L. Katz, “ Confidence Intervals for the Number Showing a Certain Characteristic in a Population when Sampling Is With out Replacement,” Journal o f the A m erican Statistical A ssociation , Yol. 48 (1953), pp. 256-261. Appendix B. Survey Questionnaire Budget Bureau No. 44-603 Approval expires September 1, 1963 QUESTIONNAIRE - PART I This is strictly a confidential survey. Nobody except the person who mailed this to you will see your answers. Please return this questionnaire in the enclosed, self-addressed, stamped envelope before ________________ . A. YOUR EMPLOYMENT AT THE__________________________CHINA COMPANY: 1. How many years altogether did you work at that com pany?________________________ years 2. In your last two years at that company, what was your usual occupation (or job title) ? 3. When were you finally laid off from that company? B. AFTER YOU WERE LAID OFF FROM THE____________ ________Month ________ Year CHINA COMPANY FOR THE LAST TIME: 4. Did you look for another j o b ? ________________________________ Yes______ No______ a. If ‘“ No,” please explain why you didn’t ._____________________________________________ b. If “ Yes,” how many weeks did it take you to find another job, if you found one?______ ______ Weeks (Check here if you never found one_________ __ ) 5. Did you get unemployment compensation after your layoff from the __________C om pany?__________________________________________ Yes______ If “ yes,” (a) how many weeks of benefits did you d r a w ? _________________ No______ ______ Weeks (b) why did your benefits stop? (Check one:) _______ I found a job or entered my own business. _______ My benefits were used up. _______ Other reason (specify).___________________ 6. If you didn’t get unemployment compensation, explain why. 7. Are you working n o w ? ________________________________________ Yes No 8. If you are not working now, check the answer that applies to you: I am not able to work. _______ I am retired. _______ I am doing housework in my own home. _______ I am actively looking for work. _______ Other reason (specify)._____________ 79 C. GENERAL INFORMATION: 9. Age: Please check your correct age group: 1 4 -1 9 _____ 2 5 -34______ 45-54______ 62-64 _____ 20-24_____ 35-44_____ 55-61______ 65 and over______ 10. What is the highest grade of school you completed?________________________________ Grade 11. Sex (check o n e ) _________________________________________ 12. Check one: Male______ Female______ Are you m arried ?_______________________________________________ ___________ Other (single, widowed, separated, divorced) ? ___________________ ___________ 13. How many minor children (under 18 years of age) do you have?________ __________ Children 14. How many years have you lived in or near (within commuting distance) o f __________ ? ____________________________________ _________Years D. THE KIND OF WORK YOU ARE DOING NOW: (Please answer these questions if you are doing any kind of work for pay or income.) 15. Do you work for an em ployer?________________________________ Y es______ No______ a. If “ Yes,” your occupation (or job t it le )_______________________________________ _ b. Name of com pany_________________________________________ ______ __________________ c. City (or t o w n )_________________________________________ State_______________________ d. How did you get the information to apply for this job? (Check one:) ____ from the state Employment Service (Unemployment Office). from the_______________________ Company. ____ from the labor union you belong to. _ _ _ from a friend or relative. ____ you somehow heard about the job and went to the company and applied. ____ other (specify).______ 16. Do you have your own business or fa r m ? ________________________ Yes_____ N o______ a. If “ Yes,” what kind of business is it?___________________________________ b. Its location (City, Town, or County)________________________________________________ 17. How long have you been in your present job or business?_______________________ Months 18. Is this your first job or business since you left th e __________company? Yes____ No____ 19. Do you earn income from any other kind of work besides the job or business that you checked above? ________________________________________________________ If “ Yes,” ’ please specify what kind it is .______________ 80 Y es______ N o _____ Budget Bureau No. 44-603 Approval expires September 1,1963 QUESTIONNAIRE - PART II This is the second half of the questionnaire that was sent to you before. All your answers still remain confidential. Please return it in the enclosed, self-addressed, envelope before. E. WHILE YOU WERE STILL EMPLOWED AT THE_________________ CHINA COMPANY: 1. About how far did you travel from home to work (one way) ? ------------------- ----------- Miles 2. Did you own your own home in or near____________________ _______________________________ (that is, within commuting distance of the company) ? --------------- Y es______ N o______ 3. Think about the wages you earned in your last few months with the company before you were finally laid off, and answer either a or b — below: a. If you were on an hourly rate, about how much was it?----------------$ _________Per Hour b. If you were on a piece rate, what is your best guess of how much it figured out to on an hourly-rate b a s is ? ____________$ _________ Per Hour 4. Think about your last twelve months with the company before you were finally laid off, and answer a and b — below: a. Check the bracket below that shows the total number of weeks that you worked at the company on either part-time or full-time work: 1 to 5 weeks_______ 21 to 25 weeks ___________ 6 to 10 weeks_______ 26 to 30 w eek s_______46 11 to 15 weeks_______ 31 to 35 w eek s_______ 16 to 20 weeks_______ 36 to 40 w e e k s _______ 41to45weeks____ to 50 weeks_______ 51 to52weeks Check here if you don’t remember or if you were with the company less than a yea r.______ b. For the same twelve months, check the bracket below that shows the total wages (before any deductions) that the company paid you: less than $500 ______ $3000 to $3500____________ $6000to$6500 $500 to $1000______ $3500 to $4000____________ $6500to$7000 $1000 to $1500______ $4000 to $4500____________ $7000to$7500 $1500 to $2000______ $4500 to $5000____________ $7500to$8000 $2000 to $2500______ $5000 to $5500_______ $2500 to $3000______ $5500 to $6000_______ _______ more than $8000 Check here if you don’t remember or if you were with the company less than a yea r.______ 5. (This question is to be answered only by men, not women.) If you were married at that time, was your wife usually working for a wage or other income?--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Y es______ N o ______ Not married 81 F. PERIOD OF UNEMPLOYMENT: Please answer this section if you became unemployed after you lost your job at the ____________________ Company. If you were not unemployed (like, you got another job right away or you decided to retire), skip this section and move on to section G — below. 6. If you got unemployment compensation, about how much was your weekly benefits? _______________________________________________ __________ $________ Per Week 7. Leaving out unemployment compensation, how did you (and your family) meet living ex penses: (Please check:) _____ We used our savings___________________________ About how much?---------- $___________ If savings were used, do you or your family have any le f t ? ____ Yes______No____ _____ We borrowed m oney____________________________ About how m u ch ?------- $___________ _____ We moved to cheaper housing. ___ We got cash assistance from a public or private welfare agency. _____ We got some other kind of public assistance, such as free food. _____ We got help from private people outside our household. We sold our property. _____ Any other (specify). _______________________________________________________________ G. THE JOB OR OTHER WORK YOU HAVE NOW: Please answer this section only if you are working now. If you are not working, check here__________ , skip the rest o f this page, and move on to section H — on the next page. 8. How far do you now travel from home to work (one way) ? _______________ __________ Miles 9. Do you own your own home in or near the city or place where you work now (within commut ing distance of your work) ? ___________________________________ Y e s _________ No_______ 10. What is your best guess of your usual wages (or other income) that you are earning lately? ____________________________________________________________ Per Hour 11. What is your best guess of the average hours-per-week that you have been working during the past few m onths?_________________________________________ _________ Hours Per Week 12. Is your present job (or work) more steady employment than the job you used to have at the Company? (Check one:) More Steady________ Less Steady_________ About the S am e_________ Don’t Know 13. Does your present job (or work) require more skill than the job you used to have at the Company? (Check one:) More S k ill_________Less Skill__________ About the Same__________ Don’t K n ow ________ 14. (This question is to be answered only by men, not women.) If you are married, does your wife usually work for a wage or other income at this time? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Y e s________ N o _____ Not Married 82 H. SOME GENERAL QUESTIONS: Whether you are working now or not, please answer the questions below. 15. If you were offered a job in another part of the country at about the same pay as your old pottery job, would you take it? (Check one:) ____ Yes, definitely. Maybe, it depends (specify on w hat). _______________________________ No (explain why n ot). 16. In addition to regular school, did you ever take any special training such as apprenticeship, a trade school or business school course?________________________ Yes______ N o _____ a. If “ Yes,” what kind of training was it? ______________________________________________ b. When did you take i t ? ________________________________________________ __________ Year 17. If there were a plan for training workers for new jobs, and paying them something while learning, would you be interested? (Check one:) Yes. What kind of training would you like to g e t? ________________________________ Maybe, it depends (specify on w hat). No (explain why n ot). ____ Don’t know. 18. If you wish to, use the rest of this page and the back of it to say anything you want to about employment and unemployment problems in and around__________________________________. ☆ U. S. G O V E R N M E N T P R IN T IN G O F F IC E : 1966—2 2 2 -3 8 2 83
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