Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1941-04-11
FARMERS LIKELY
FIND TROUBLE in
GETTING WORKERS


present trends in employment con-
tinue, before the end of the summer
farmers may find it difficult to get
the workers they need unless both
farmers and workers use the State
employment offices. He states that
reports from the U. S. Employment
Service indicate thousands of work.
ers who were formerly available for
agricultural jobs already have found
work in industrial plants producing
defense material.
Farm placement supervisors in
form the United States Employment
Service that these recruits to defense
industries include many men who US
ually do the normal year-round work
on the farm. Most of them, how
ever, the reports show, are drawn
from the caravans of migratory work
ers who work in the sugar beet and
cotton fields, and handle the fruit
and vegetable crops, moving from
region to region in time with season
al production. Many jobs in plants
producing defense materials call for
NO special skill or for minor skill
which can be acquired during short
period of training, it was explained,
and can, therefore, be filled by men
and women who customarily work on
the farms.
If there is close copetation be-
tween farmers and workers and the
State employment offices, it is antici-
pated there will be no serious diff
Guilty in obtaining a sufficient number
of workers to put in, care for and gath
er this years crops. Without such
cooperation workers are likely to be
at one place when they are needed in
another. It was pointed out that for
several years there has been surplus
of such labor, and that there remains
a sufficient number of hands to do
the farm work.
Farm placement supervisors station
ed in the agricultural States, cooper
ating with the, county agents of the
Department of Agriculture, county
agricultural committees and local
farm organization, are canvassing
farmers to ascertain as nearly as
possible what their needs are going
to be from now until the end of the
year. Their chief concern is to see
that the more than 100000 migra-
tory workers are properly directed to
prevent congestion at one point and
scarcity at another.
In line with the campaign of the
u. S. Employment Service, to bring
about a Nationwide registration of
unemployed workers of all types, who
may be needed either in defense in
dustries, or to take the places of
those who have gone into the factor
les or into military service, an effort
is being made to locate all available
farm-hands. Because migratory
workers-both those who regularly
move northward through the western
States as successive crops mature,
working in the beet fields and the
potato-patches in Oregon; and those
along the eastern seaboard from Flor
ida to Maine-operate as groups, rath
er than as individuals, the employ
ment service is keeping in touch with
them through their leaders. The
farm placement service supervisors
are calling upon group leaders to fur
nish them with full information con-
corning the size of their groups and
their whereabouts, so that they can
be readily directed to fields where
work is available.
The representatives of the employ
nent service see no insuperable diff
Guilty in directing the many migra-
tory groups to places where there is
work. The fact that some reductions
IN farm labor is developing will, in
itself, tend to prevent much of the
confusion which has prevailed over a
period of several years when groups
Of workers carried on more or less
Independent search for work.
Many of the leaders of these groups
it was pointed out, have come to rely
upon the State Employment Service
as the agency which can best direct
them to communities where work will
be available at a given time. The
employment service draws sharp
line between migratory workers who
move systematically from region to
region as the season advances, and
those who wander aimlessly across
the country with only a vagaue hope
that they may find work. The SER
vice seeks to discourage this unplan-