The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-10-12
THE LABOR SITUATION.

There Is no actual shortage Ol labor in any section generally speaking Of the United States in the strict sense of the word There is diminution in the number of unemployed and the situation has in that way greatly improved. But on the whole there is stil! a labor surplus and no better index to this fact could be shown than the mum Der Of strikes which are rot won, la: which are adjusted compro- missed or end in defeat of tbe work CTS. There does exist such a con dltiou os things iu the labor world tha, Cha employers experience from time To time wEat is for them real shortage.
 In every industry there are cer- tain jobs which are filed only tenn. porarily. Excess labor is used to fill them, and when the jobs are completed the men so working are laid of. In the railroad industry for example. a company decides to surface a division, to relay steel along its length.
 it needs fer that purpose q sup. ply Of labor which will be employed from four t0 six months of the yeat only. But even in industries where there is no such characteristically temporary employment, in factories in industrial plants generally, every new and then throughout the .n- dustrial year there arises a demand Ter men to fill certain positions which will last anywhere from q week to several months
 Now when the excess labor in the market is hired by employers on account of steady demands for that labor. as at the present time, the first jobs to feel the need of help are such temporary jobs as we al ludcd to.
 Moreover this condition is greatly accentuated by reason of the fact that those who are idle are reluct- ant to engage in such temporary jobs lest they lose the chance of getting a permanent employment somewhere that they have their mind set upon.
 Employers when they face this situation show a tendency to make general cry that there is a short age of labor when there is no such thing, but when there is an ine"ici- ent distribution of labor.
 Moreover these temporary jobs. of which mention has been made. are in the final analysis the really important jobs as far IS labor is concerned.
 The men who fill them experi- ence the most complete competi- ton among themselves. There are more men. usually, to fill such jobs than there arc any such jobs. And for this reason the wages paid reach the standard which CT ploy- CTS desire to pay, which is in fact and truth. the lowest possible for which those men can be hired.
 That is the minimum. And one never establishes minimum with out there and then establishing a relation between it and the max s5,f. ri the maximum also varies, whcn tine one increases or decreases SC does ihe other.
 The only men who "ra >ped this fact firmly were the economists. usually tho product of self study, in the industriallst movement. And, we want say, there are econo"ists connected with that movement a. though they themselves would be the first to disclaim any such a title, who can in their clear ana lysis of the labor movement ana tho labor situation, give the college professors cards and spades in a practical Interpretation of the var ious phenomena of the movement,
 1t is not too much to s2y thet tho pay of the highest class of teehni- cal labor will depend to very great degree upon the wages paid fhe unskillod temporary laboror. It may seem absurd to the highly qualified techniclan in any trade