An idea of the volume and type of work carried on may be gained from the following table: Function TABLE 8 OPERATIONS IN the Field of Agricultural LABOR,1⁄44 Location Directed to employment at regular monthly farm labor Kansas City, Mo. office.. Sioux City, Iowa office.. Wheat harvest labor Recruited and directed Little Rock, Ark... Number 4,597 1,896 3,005 5,982 3,620 372 2,270 Kansas offices (Kansas City, Topeka, Hutchison, Wichita, Colby, Salina) 32,246 Nebraska offices (Omaha, Lincoln, Hastings and Sidney) 3,492 5,502 South Dakota offices (Sioux Falls, Watertown, Mitchell, 11,480 North Dakota offices (including Montana directions), 8,520 Other seasonal labor Corn huskers: Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri and Iowa... 2,300 235 510 Potato pickers: Kansas, Nebraska and Red River Valley. 1,066 6,119 Total ...106,743 Juvenile Work. The juvenile work of the Service deals with the young men and women of the country between the legal working age and twenty-one years of age. The purpose of the work is: (a) to aid the schools of the country in assisting pupils to select and prepare for a definite occupational responsibility in which they may become efficient, productive, and constructive workers; (b) to do all possible to secure for them the type of position in which they may utilize their abilities to the 14 A brief of the present activities of the U. S. Employment Service. Ms. January 18, 1923. best advantage; and (c) to afford the type of employment supervision which will encourage efficiency, full development of abilities, adaptability, and stability. The work thus falls into three main phases: I. Vocational guidance 2. Placement 3. Follow-up Vocational Guidance. Under the work of vocational guidance certain activities become primarily educational in nature, the Service, through its Junior Division, acting in a coöperative rather than a directive capacity. In carrying out this work daily contact is maintained with business demands, business successes, and business failures. Information based on such contacts is collected and disseminated: information designed to help the schools estimate more accurately the social and economic value of their product and to introduce such curriculum changes as may be necessary to meet the changing demands of the business world. The Service, through its Junior Division, also attempts to bring back under educational influence, either for full-time or part-time, boys and girls to whom further educational service can be rendered. In carrying out the employment or placement activity, the work is concerned with the pooling, distributing, and marketing of the junior or juvenile labor supply, in such manner as to realize for each individual his best possibilities and his utmost contribution to the welfare of society. The placement work divides naturally into two phases concerned with (a) those boys and girls found at the source of supply, that is, the schools, and (b) those who have left school. With the former group the task is reasonably simple, as the supply is already pooled at the source and awaiting, if not expecting, placement aid. Such placement constitutes a distinctly class service, however, leaving a large group unattended. This second group comprises those of working age who are not attending school but who are employed with greater or less regularity.15 15 According to the 1920 Census, approximately 48 per cent of the youth of the United States between the ages of 14 and 21 were either in school or doing nothing while 52 per cent were employed with more or less regularity. Attention to this second group involves the function of supervision and follow-up, using all available school information as to the ability and interests of every applicant and the combination of such knowledge with information as to the demands of various positions. Definite and systematic employment supervision is aimed at; service which seeks to answer the question: "What further developmental capacity has each individual and how may he be encouraged to develop it through evening schools, correspondence courses and the like?" In carrying out the three phases of its work, namely, vocational guidance, placement, and follow-up, the Service does not solicit local coöperation. It responds to requests from local educational systems and promises coöperation only after satisfying itself that the community is vitally and intelligently interested and ready to assume responsibility for the development of the work locally. The plan of coöperation requires that the city so coöperating shall take responsibility for the successful operation of the guidance and placement work locally and maintain adequate records of job opportunities and specifications, and lists of available junior applicants with their educational qualifications, vocational objective, and special training. The Service, finally, offers leadership and advice in analyzing local demands and in perfecting an organization best fitted to local needs, pools the experience of the country with regard to junior employment problems, and stimulates the program by periodical, official visits, by which local offices are informed as to newer and better methods of organization and operation. The actual work accomplished may be visualized from the accompanying table. It is to be borne in mind, however, that in numerous cases it is the function of the advisor to discourage placement and suggest a return to school. Hence, unlike general employment work, the record of placements does not necessarily, in junior guidance, indicate efficient work. The figures below do not take into account the total volume of the work of the office. A large number of consultations (reports of which are made informally) have to do with personal advice touching educational opportunities and follow-up work. The state of development of each office differs greatly, as do local conditions surrounding the work. TABLE 9 16 REGISTRATION, REFERRALS, AND PLACEMENTS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1922, JUNIOR DIVISION FIELD OFFICES f Reports from November, 1921. Reports from October, 1921. h Reports from March, 1922. 1 Works only in a continuation school to help initiate the placement idea in the school system; reports sent in on a different basis from the other offices since September, 1921. 16 Figures taken from Hearing. Appropriation bill, 1924. Departments of Commerce and Labor (as previous), p. 298. CHAPTER III ORGANIZATION The United States Employment Service, though technically a creation of the Office of the Secretary of Labor,' functions as a bureau of the Department of Labor. The Service is organized upon both a geographical and a functional plan, the general administration being carried on centrally at Washington,' while the technical operations inhere to the field. The organization is set up to supervise and control four technical processes in addition to the general executive and administrative activities. These processes are concerned with (1) coöperation with states and municipalities in general employment work, (2) the gathering of industrial employment information, (3) recruitment and distribution of agricultural labor, and (4) junior placement and guidance. The frame-work of the organization thus, is: The Director General General Administration Office Proper of the Director General Office of Chief Clerk Technical Supervision State Coöperation Work Industrial Employment Information Section Farm District As will be noted, the organization nomenclature is not standardized, a section being, to all intents and purposes, coördinate with a division. It is also to be noted that while certain units come directly under the supervision of the Director General, others are responsible to him through an intermediary administrative officer. 'Under permissive provisions of the law. See pp. 29 and 41 ante. 2 With the exception of farm and harvest work. 68 |