Evening star., 1947-01-12
Million Women Quit
Jobs in Year 10
Resume HouseWork

During the last year, million
women workers left factories and
Offices to go back to their kitchens.
But most of these Withdrawals from
the labor market were voluntary, ac-
cording to a report on women's en-
ployment issued yesterday by the
Women's Bureau of the Labor De-
partment.
Unemployment among women has
been small, lowering around the half
million mark but there has been a
certain amount of occupational
shifting as industry converted to
peacetime production and men re-
turned to the jobs they had left,
said Miss Frieda S. Miller, director
of the Women's Bureau, who wrote
the report.
Studies made by the bureau have
shown that women whose experience
was limited to war industry jobs
have had the hardest time finding
suitable postwar work. Most of
them have been reluctant to take
employment in fields where women
were employed traditionauy, but
where low wages or other undesir-
able conditions existed. The report
was based on figures from Novem-
Der, 1945, to November, 1916, when
the number Of women workers to-
tailed 100000.
Typical Cases Cited.
A typical illustration of shifts
of women in employment, Miss Mil
Ter stated, was the story of two
shipyard workers who had earned
more than $50 for a 48-hour week
and now are employed in a depart
ment store and in a public utility
company for $22 and $26, respec-
lively, for 40-hour week.
However, studies also showed that,
In certain cases, women workers who
had been trained for certain jobs
and laid off after VI day, were now
being called back to fit into the
peacetime production lines. For
example, in Baltimore, women
dropped by a large aircraft plant
are being recalled. it was said, toI
take over similar jobs.
A significant trend for women in
industrial, white collar, and profess
sional fields, the report said, is the
years advance on the equal pay"
front. THE wartime drive to pro-
mote adoption of the principle of
equal pay for comparable work re-
gardless of sex has gained momen-
tum since VI Day." Miss Miller
declared. She pointed out that
many major unions have included
equal pay clauses in their contracts,
not only to benefit women members
but to safeguard mems job rates.
Calls Outlook Encouraging.
Employment opportunities for
women are encouraging, Miss Miller
said. Her studies revealed that
gains made by women in such fields
as chemistry, physics, biology, archi-
lecture, engineering and other
scientific branches, have a good
chance of lasting, despite the closing
of some establishments utilizing the
services of such technically trained
women.
An even more encouraging de-
velopment, she said, because of the
number involved, is the continued
use of women on semiprofesslonal
basis. as laboratory assistants, engi-4
neering aides, test analysts and
computers, to assist professional
workers.
The continued need of women as
stenographers, typists, teachers,
nurses, librarians, dietitians and
social workers results from diversion
into war jobs of women formerly
employed in these fields, the report
said, and more important for the
future, of girls who would ordinarily
have taken training in them. Many
women after their wartime occupa-
tional experiences do not want to
accept these jobs again.
The marked war exodus of women
from household employment has not
been followed by return to the
field, Miss Miller said. But a survey
by the Women's Bureau found 10
communities in the country were
making an effort to set up standards
for working conditions and wages
and other ways to make the domes-
tic field attractive to women work