| Excerpts from press conference of Howard 0. Hunter, in Los Angeles, California, February 2, 1942, 9:30 A.M.: |
Query: | What do you think it (WPA employment) will go to in the next few months?
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Mr. Hunter: | I don't know. I am not prepared to say, but I will take these people on. If that is a larger number than we can handle with the present appropriation, we will have to ask for a larger appropriation.*** |
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Query: | How does the agriculture feature enter into this? Is there quite a shortage of farm workers?
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Mr. Hunter: | I don't find any evidence of a farm labor shortage yet. In the middle west, a year ago, there were 3 to 3-1/2 millions surplus labor on farms. Until these are washed out, there isn't going to be much shortage, and then, too, the big part of farming in this country is done by machine. There might be a shortage of farm machinery operators. We are proposing through the WPA vocational schools to train farm machinery operators, tractor drivers, machinists, of which there might be a shortage.
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Query: | We have always had, here in Southern California, a considerable problem in white-collar workers. What plan do you have for them? Any different?
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Mr. Hunter: | None. We have none except that we may expand certain activities of the Office of Civilian Defense and the national office has appointed a liaison man to work out acceptable projects for that kind of people.
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Query: | Has the WPA recommended increase in these (training) schools? Apparently there are lots of schools which could train for 24 hours but are actually working only 8 hours and say they are operating for 24.
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Mr. Hunter: | I have found in parts of the country they are working only 8 hours a day; some double shift; other parts 24 hours. I have no limit on the quota of WPA people who can go (to school). The only limit is the number of schools and the length of time which the vocational schools operate. We can take anybody on who can possibly be trained. We have graduated into private jobs about 150,000 throughout the country, in addition to 850,000 who left the rolls directly to go into private industry last year, the largest turnover in percentage since the program began.
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Query: | Has there been any thought of transferring laborers from one part of the country to another?
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Amory: | We brought some in here from other parts of the country—from Utah and New Mexico—to be trained out here in the schools.
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Mr. Hunter: | The training problem is something that is little understood. Training is not a very complicated job. The only shortage of labor is a very small number of precision tool mechanics. We can take a person out of an automobile factory and in a week or ten days, he can work in an airplane factory. Most of the people we put in the plants for actual training where the theory is from 8 to 10 weeks; the majority get a job in one to two weeks. I don't think the training problem is, however, as serious as people make it out. We look for a probable increase in unemployment of about 2 million due to the conversion of industry and the shutting down of certain consumer goods industries. We do not think that will last very long. If the country gets on the full production program which has been proposed by the War and Navy Departments, unemployment will be negligible. Our estimates are that by the end of the calendar year, most of that new unemployment created now will have been absorbed again, but for the immediate future, there will be an increase.
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Query: | What's that total figure?
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Mr. Hunter: | 4 million unemployed. 6 million in the next few months. Of the full 15,000,000 who will be needed, there are now about 5,000,000 at work in war production industries. To get to the peak, war industries will need about 10,000,000 more.
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Query: | Where will they come from?
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Mr. Hunter: | 8 million will come from non-war production industries such as automobile factories and other industries shut down. There will probably be an increase of some 2 million in the total available labor during the year,—people who were never employed or unemployed before—in rural districts—plus kids leaving school.
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Query: | Will that 2 million come from the 4 million now unemployed?
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Mr. Hunter: | A lot of that comes out of schools and universities or families already employed. At the present we have to watch that a little more closely because of the average age and the reduction from our rolls of practically all skilled labor definitely employable. Some of them could not, because of the age factor. The average age has gone up in most states and down in a few. The unemployment is going to be very spotty. You are in one of the best spots in the country.
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Query: | Was there been some talk of doing away with the relief standards on the WPA jobs that will be opening up in the next year or so?
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Mr. Hunter: | I think we can do it under the present act. I think very probably the WPA will do in the next few years work different from the type it has done in the past. Our administrative staff throughout the country do jobs for the Office of Civilian Defense, Defense Housing organization,... we probably have the most decentralized staff of any agency in Washington, except the Post Office. We have about 450,000 out of 1,000,000 people directly on defense construction, mostly airports and roads. 35,000 doing organized recreation for the Arnold and industrial centers. *** |
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Query: | What is WPA doing for the Army and Navy?
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Mr. Hunter: | We have been working pretty close to the Army and Navy for the last 7 years. The last couple of years we did the major part of new construction and improvements for the Army and Navy reservations. We have probably spent, since the beginning of WPA, close to a billion dollars for the Army and Navy. They have ample funds now to do their own construction work.
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Query: | Do they have the men?
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Mr. Hunter: | In places where they don't, we usually don't. We have done 80% of all the airport work in the United states since 1936, the beginning of WPA.*** |
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