Evening star., 1945-07-30
California Sees Steel
As Bright Hope for
Postwar Employment

Postwar Employment
Continued From First Page)
employment can be filled as war jobs
fold.
The Governor Is satisfied that the
State, so far, has been treated fairly
in the matter of cancellation OF war
orders and freeing of facilities for
permanent production. Aircraft pro-
duction has been cut 80 per cent and
the States other big war industry,
shipbuilding, even more.
Worker Shift Puzzling.
Incidentally, there is a develop
ment attending the big cutbacks
that is both pleasing and puzzling
to the Governor. Although employ
ment in big aircraft plants has been
reduced nearly 100000 in the last
year and at least as many workers
have been released from Shipyards,
manpower still is very tight. Mr..
Warren said there is evidence few
workers have left the State and he
is at q loss to know where they
have gone. Only $4,000 are getting
unemployment compensation, and
the average person is off the rolls
in two and one-half weeks. The
number receiving compensation has
shown some increase, but is still
low.
Mr.. Warren said the only ex-
plantations he had for this worker
disappearance were that many wom-
en- had returned to the household
and other workers were gobbled up
by manpower-hungry service trades.
California has changed during the
war from a land preponderantly
dependent on agriculture and tour
ist trade to a great industrial State,
Gov. Warren said employment, in
cluding agriculture, now totals g.
4OC 900, with more than half in war
work. There are 100000 new peo-
pie in war work, most of whom have
been recruited from other areas.
Permanent Industry Lags.
The unfortunate part of Califor-
MAS industrial growth, and the one
that causes the greatest problem, is
that so much of the expansion has
been in aircraft production and
shipbuilding, the two industries to
be hit hardest by the wars end. De-
velopment of industry of perma-
nent type has been comparatively
minor.
Nearly half of the airframe pro-
duction is on the West Coast, with
most of it concentrated in Califor-
MIA. Mr. Warren said that post
war orders for planes would use
only about 10 per cent of manufac-
turing capacity, although some
manufacturers, interviewed later,
were more optimistic. Shipbuilding
activity will be similarly reduced.
Gov. Warren said that California
must continue in peacetime as a
great manufacturing State, if jobs
are to be provided for any sizable
portion of the new population, most
of which, surveys show, will remain
after the war. Agriculture offers
small opportunity for expansion, he
added.
Great new industries must be
built up and brought into the area.
Other capital must be encouraged
to build plants in the State, and the
greatest utilization made of local
capital and existing facilities.
independence Needed.
California must produce the goods,
which before the war, were imported
from the East, and Midwest, The
State, tied in with her Western
neighbors. must become sort of an
empire herself, generally econom-
ically independent of the industrial
East.
The impression was given by Gov.
Warren that his State probably had
done more than any other in looking
for solution of postwar problems.
State-sponsored surveys have been
made of scores of industries, exam
lining thier suitability to California.
Encouraging reports have been re-
ceived of new activity coming to the
State.
The Governor, who incidentally
said he was even less interested in
national Office today than a year
ago, when he rejected probable
Republican nomination for vice
president because of the press Of
State problems, accepted the fact
that there could be no relief until
VI day for California's heavily
loaded transport lines. But, he said
the State should have first call on
a large number of civilian trucks,
because of the peculiar problem.
Steel Plants Provide Hope.
The news that Shipbuilder Henry
J. Kaiser had definite plans to build
automobiles in the San Francisco
area was encouraging. But, even
more important to the dreams of
economic independence of Gov
Warren and other Westerners are
Mr.. Kaiser's huge steel mill at Fon-
tana, near Los Angeles, and the even
larger one of Geneva Steel Co. at
Provo, Utah. The Government paid
for both at a combined cost of
nearly 100000.
A battle that has not always re-
manned undercover has been in
progress for a long time now over
postwar control of the two giant
plants. Although Gov. Warren said
little on this point, Westerners