Before the World War this country received a steady stream of illed workmen immigrating from Europe but this has been largely cut oit. and apprenticeship programmes were largely forgotten during the 1930's, Piracy of workmen by one employer of industry from another is now being reported from many parts of the country, and a large number of the defence industries are lengthening their hours consider ably to offset the shortage of skilled men.
Machine tool building builders, for instance, after having recently informed the OPIN that their industry will turn out $750,000,000 of tools this year in place of the originally promised $650,000.000 (and on top of only $425000.000 in 1940) have in some cases expanded their operations to two shifts of eleven hours a day each. so that some workers are now putting in 65 hours a week. This appears to be about the absolute limit in efficient working time for a man without a deterioration in the quality of his work. A recent study of the Bureau of Labour Statistics showed that of 394 plants in vital defence industries, 116 were working six days a week and 68 seven days.
However. if these figures are inverted, the situation does not look so desperate, as large possibilities of further expansion—if the men can be found—appear. Of the 394 plants more -than half were working "less than "sit days -a' week—142" were operating only five days and 63 were operating 5% days a week. The average overtime was over 11 hours in shipbuilding and machine-tools, ten to eleven hours in machine-tool accessories and engines; and less in the other industries.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.