OCR Text |
Show After Peace Comes, What? Committee for Economic Development Seeks Ways to Maintain Employment i Survey of Community's Postwar Business Prospects Is Urged ' By ELLIOTT PINE Released 6y Western Newspaper Union. Within a year, and perhaps much sooner, the war in Europe Eu-rope will end, according to most experts, both political and military. Immediately the problems of reconverting wartime America to peacetime peace-time production will begin. Factories that have been running run-ning day and night will slow down and perhaps close. Marty thousands of men will be released from the armed forces. Labor shortages will disappear, and before long, the specter of unemployment will be back. It was to try to devise ways for the orderly return to peacetime production, produc-tion, and to try to avoid the mass unemployment that usually follows war, that the Committee for Economic Eco-nomic Development was organized, a little more than a year ago. This committee is a group of the nation's na-tion's foremost business executives, bankers, economists, and other technical tech-nical experts. Chairman is Paul G. Hoffman, president of the Studebak-er Studebak-er corporation. The vice chairman Is the vice president of the University Univer-sity of Chicago. Presidents of several sev-eral nationally known corporations serve on the committee. The committee is not connected with the federal government in any way, although its office is in Washington, Wash-ington, D. C. Its activities are split Into two major branches: Research division, and Field Development division. di-vision. The research division has the task of investigating all policies of business, labor and government that retard expanding employment and production. After finding out what and where. the trouble is, the research re-search division presents recommen dations for suitable changes. The field development division "has the responsibility of stimulating stimulat-ing and helping Individual enterprises enter-prises to plan now for high levels of productive employment and profitable prof-itable distribution in the postwar period." There are 12 regional chairmen, 1 for each Federal Reserve district, who supervise the field development division's work in their sections. Under Un-der the regional chairmen are state chairmen, who in turn appoint chairmen of county committees. Finally, Fi-nally, the county committees supervise super-vise the survey work of the community com-munity committees. How Albert Lea, Minn., Does It A typical survey by a community committee Is one conducted in Albert Al-bert Lea, a city of 12,200 in Freeborn Free-born county, Minnesota. Freeborn county ia on the southern edge of the state, adjoining Iowa, so the trading radius of Albert Lea includes part of three northern Iowa counties. coun-ties. Nearly 50,000 people in the agricultural region about the municipality munic-ipality trade at Albert Lea's stores. There are 11 major industries in Albert Lea, and 442 businesses classed as secondary employers. There is a stove factory, a gas machine ma-chine factory, a creamery, a meat packing plant, a food products maker, mak-er, and several specialty products manufacturers in the city. The electric elec-tric power company is located there. Being a county seat, there is considerable con-siderable legal and clerical activity. Keeping all these matters in mind, the local economic development committee began its survey of postwar business and employment possibilities. Its first step was to set up two questions, the answers to which were to be the solution of its problem. Beginning with the premise that "Somehow there would be a Job paying a living wage for every worker who wanted one after aft-er the war." First thing, said the committee, Is to find out how many workers would want Jobs, and how many Jobs business busi-ness thought it could provide after the war. It took the number employed In 1940 as a base, this being the last full year before the country entered the war. Then it added the number unemployed and seeking work in that year. These figures were: F.!lloyed In IMS 4.ZS4 Unemployed In IMS 121 ToUl prewar labor lore 4.9ST Then the committee obtained the employment figures for 11H3, recognizing recog-nizing that they were abnormally high, with many women and high-school high-school students working who ordinarily ordi-narily would not be in Industry. Some people had moved Into town too, who were not expected to stay ppr" KT") pj HAPPY STEEL WORKERS, lined up before the pay windows of a huge Pittsburgh plant now operating at capacity, are representative of the millions of factory people now earning good wages. But how many will be working when the war orders end? after the war boom. The figures settled upon were: Employed in 194 S,S Unemployed in 1943 200 Wartime tabor force 5,651 The next step was more difficult. It was to try to estimate how many persons would want work after the war, when the servicemen bad re- I hoped to buy were: New automobiles: City retident 1,15 ears at $1,053 average eol $1,217,268 Farmers 1,140 cars at 870 " " 1,105,800 New bousing: City homes 442 at 4,068 1.798.05S Farm bouies 150 at 3,150 - " 472,500 Repalri to housing: City houses 714 at 514 " ' 36,99f Farm houses S40 at SOO H 488,000 Farm barns 360 at 1,473 " 530,280 Farm silos 360 at 539 ' " 194,040 Other farm purchases; Tractors 780 at 926 " " 722,280 Prefabricated imall buildings.... S10 at 566 " " 458,460 Electrical IniUUaUons 110 at 32S " - 263,250 Other city purchases: Refrigerators 646 at 163 " 105,298 Furniture 878 at 199 M " 115,022 VacaUon travel 986 at 176 173,536 turned, and other changes had come about. A survey among employers employ-ers gave these figures: Returning from armed forces.. 1,012 Returning from farms 123 Returning from other regions.. 250 Growth and maturity of population popula-tion (1943-46) 428 Total 1,813 This total was then added to the wartime labor force: Wartime labor force (1943) S.65S Number returning after war. ...1,813 Total T,47 Subtracted from this, however, was a sizable group who would not be in the labor market after the war. These were: Returning to farms 123 Returning to other regions SO Not seeking postwar Jobs 734 Total 909 Taking this number from the 7,470 previous total left 6,561, which the committee called the net postwar labor force. In other words, between six and seven thousand people would be expecting to find steady work in Albert Lea after the war. Obviously, Obvious-ly, the next move was to find out how many jobs the city's employers could provide. When returns came in from every employer, from smallest small-est shop to largest factory, the results re-sults were: ' Postwar labor force (as before)6,Ml Number that can be employed after war, si .estimated 5,98 Albert Lea's nnemployed In, say, 1946, oo this basis 591 So, about 600 people would be out of work, or nearly 10 per cent Local Business Prospects. ' The committee then turned to finding find-ing out whether business activity could not be stimulated a bit Every Ev-ery business man answered a confidential con-fidential questionnaire. Tabulated responses gave this salient information: informa-tion: ' The 11 big industries gave this reply, as summarized: Volume of business done la 1913 (gross sales) I I.MO.Ot Volume of business done In 1940 22,793,000 Volume of business done In 1943 51,443,000 Volume of business yon expert ex-pert to do In the Brtt postwar year 49,660,000 Then the 442 secondary businesses were told that these 11 major Industries Indus-tries expected to employ about 60 per cent more workers In the postwar post-war period than In 1940, and 1 per cent more than in 1943, the peak year to date. With this In mind, the secondary business men guessed that their volume of sales would run about IS per cent higher, in the years Immediately following the war, than In 1943. While the survey among business men was being made, a second one was being conducted among a selected se-lected cross-section of the city's population pop-ulation to find out their buying intentions, in-tentions, after normal conditions returned. re-turned. A similar survey was made by mail among the farmers of Freeborn Free-born county, asking them what goods they expected to buy for their farms as well as for their homes and families. fami-lies. Some of the thines that neoole How to Pay for It. Another question put was, "How do you intend to pay for these purchases?" pur-chases?" City people with incomes between $1,770 and $3,000 replied that they would pay in this manner: man-ner: From current Income 38.2 Borrowings 41.2 War bonds 8.9 No report 11.7 Farm families with incomes ranging rang-ing from $1,500 to $2,000 a year expected ex-pected to pay for things thus: Current Income 64 Borrowings 4 War bond 32 In general, people with large incomes in-comes proposed to buy with cash rather than to borrow, as people of smaller means planned to do. Bow Much Farm Income? The Albert Lea committee realized real-ized fully how dependent the city was on the prosperity of the surrounding sur-rounding farmers. A sub-committee was working on farm Income prospects while the other investigations investiga-tions were going on. Total income for Freeborn county was set down as follows: Farm Income, 1939 1 7,316,000 Farm Income, 1943 20.164,000 Farm Income, first postwar year 19,416,004) The postwar figure was established estab-lished after analyzing the possibilities possibili-ties of changes in crops and livestock. live-stock. Aside from maintaining hemp raising, and an increase in soybeans soy-beans and some vegetable crops, the committee did not anticipate any Important changes. The members did recommend establishing a soybean soy-bean processing plant and a cannery. can-nery. To find out how much the city and county construction projects could be depended upon to provide employment, a survey of public work programs was made. When this sub-committee reported, it was shown that some $15,000 worth of work had to be deferred because of war, representing about 14,000 man-hours. man-hours. New projects might amount to $390,000 of expenditures. The committee com-mittee did not consider the possibility possibil-ity of state and federal projects. It was the committee's conclusion that little reliance could be placed on public works as a means of relieving reliev-ing unemployment After weighing all the Information Informa-tion gleaned by the sub-committees, the general committee of Albert Lea had a sound starting point for its postwar employment plans. Albert Lea Is only one city, but It Is representative of thousands of communities In the United States. Its problems are the nation's problems. prob-lems. It Is the Committee for Economic Eco-nomic Development's Intention to help solve these problems by accurate accu-rate information. |