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Show WASHINGTON . ' ! NEWSLETTER i From CONG. Y. K. GRANGER THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION According to a social security board report, reconversion unemployment unem-ployment has passed its first crest and leveled out. Although some I five million war workers lost their jobs through the wholesale cancel- ; lation of war contracts after Japan's Jap-an's surrender, less than 1.7 million individuals were filing claims for , .meniployment i nsurance during each of the past six weeks, and only some 1.2 million of these were actually receiving unemployment insurance checks. Since Japan's surrender, about 3.4 million different individuals have filed claims for benefits, and more than 40 per cent of them had found jobs by the end of October. Of those still of? the unemployment compensation rolls, 10 to 15 per cent are dropping out every week. This means that nearly 50 per cent of them are now being reemployed each month. In Utah the situation appears to be different mainly because the lay-offs in our state came a little later than in other areas in the nation. The total number of claims filed in Utah for the month of October was 38.7 per cent higher than in September, and the claims paid by Utah for interstate in-terstate cases increased 61 per cent during October. It will be interesting to follow this trend through the month of November Novem-ber to see if Utah will conform to the national pattern. NEW FEDERAL BUTLDLNGS There is considerable interest in the state of Utah, and, I suppose, in other states, in the possibility of the immediate construction of federal buildings in various communities. com-munities. We have been successful success-ful in having many cities, which otherwise qualify, recommended for new federal buildings. As a general rule, the qualifica-i tion is based on the total stamp sales by a post office during the preceding year. Because of the ;:eat increase in the sale o f stamps, many post offices have thus qualified. It is obvious, therefore, there-fore, that all these buildings cannot can-not be constructed in one year in fact, several years. The building program may be i curtailed because of lack of building materials. It is very likely that emphasis will be placed on building homes for reurning soldiers, rather than the extension of public and private pri-vate buildings for commercial purposes. The policy has been established that the post office department will determine where the first post of fices will be built, this to be done according to their priority in the saie of stamps in the first instance, and according to the urgent need of the building, on the other hand. The large federal building program is pari of the postwar program and will be accelerated or diminished dimin-ished according to the available building material and to correspond with the labor supply. |