Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-10-06
Schools Holding Night Classes
To Train Workers for Defense
Army and Private Industry Need Thousands of
Skilled Persons to Fill Huge
Government Orders
By ". B. Rassdale,
Associated Press stan Writer.

The national defense program has set
the Nations schools to working night
shifts.
Even before the defense orders
reached anything like flood stage. the
National Defense Commission began to
check over the lists of trained men in
dustry would need They searched
through the pools Of unemployed for
men with specific skills-and found them
about as deficient as a California river
Is Of water.
A few figures from the latest study
gives an idea of the needs. Aviation
wants $500 more aeronautical engineers.
Shipbuilders can use 5000 men with spe-
cialized marine engineering training.
The metal working industry needs 10000,
tool engineers right now. BY the end of
this year they will want 10000 more
Take peek. quick and inclusive, at
only one department of the Government.
The Army Ordnance Division needs
$1,000 inspectors The Air Corps wants,
or will want. 1870. The branch of chem
ical warfare can use 300 The Signal
Corps would like to have 500 inspectors
and 200 meteorologists. All of these have
to have special and technical training.
And these needs are wholly apart from
the big demand for aviation pilots and
mechanics. a part of which is being met
by the Civil Aeronautics Authority's
training program.
Industry Short, Too.
Nor do the Army and Navy needs fig
ure In the broad scale, behind the de.
Tense scene studies of private industry
that have been made by the National
Defense Commission and the ONCE of
Education
One of the sharpest illustrations of
that industrial need showed up in New
York State. Plants with munitions or
ders were asked by the Ordnance De-
partment to go to work on two-shift.
a-day basis. They reported that they
did not have the men to turn out the
materials that fast. In fact, they added,
they could not get enough skilled men
to work full single shift.
A survey of the needs of the 207
plants involved in the request developed
the information that they needed 4.076
more trained men If they were to work
on a single shift, full capacity basis.
and % TAI if they stepped up to double
shift basis. If. by tiny stretch of the
imagination, they were asked to do
three shifts day, they would need SO, 1853
more trained men. And that study COW
cred only POT plants in just one of the
48 States
Even Need Blacksmiths.
The biggest demands there were for
automatic screw machine operators,
craftsmen, radial drill press machine OPP
orators. engine lathe machine operators,
hand screw machine operators, machin-
lists, milling machine set up men and
operators, punch press operators, sheet
metal workers and tool and die makers,
And. proof that the blacksmith did not
go out with the horse and buggy. they
had TO have III blacksmiths If they
were to 60 on two-shift basis.
So far the studies have been only ex-
ploratory. They have produced some
illustrative samples. A fuller study of
industry's needs is being made by the
Defense Commission now. But the SAM
piles have been enough to set the schools
going.
For they have shown that vast dis
crepancy exists between the number Of
those who are seeking work and those
who are fitted for the job vacancies
that exist
Take. as another sample, last years
high school graduates. DR.. John w.
Studebaker, commissioner of education,
says there were a million o. them. But,
here's his analysis:
Two thirds of them were prepared to
go to college. Only one-half Of the two
thirds who were prepared for college
went to college More than two-thirds
of all those who graduated did not 60
to college
100000 Youths Jobless.
Moreover, majority of those who did
not 60 to college were prepared for col
lege, but not for anything else"
The American Youth Commission fig
ures that at least 1000, 900 young men
and women are out of school. in need of
jobs, totally unemployed; that there are
another million or so marking time in
part-time jobs, in schools or on farms.
Thousands of college graduates were
added to that pool of idle last June
when the colleges handed diplomas to
$4,000 young men and women.
But there were not many technical
school graduates among this group that
could not find jobs. Even during the