JOBS that the
®i
1 ‘1- I JBtmkJ
HMi Mi
K *»*•
wU\ * H * oHjI
JeSSM
V■-• : ffijkS
V 3*, illjPlSr
fU HSlil r
■ jr
B t lNem
■ lUpKggl^^
xmKtW f * aß’ a
JmSkv' X# _ _ _
s< -'
/•*&>:>*§& «>•’’ j
f* H «sl|| . >1 , — .'lz?-.,Y.
I i fell' am w^2J
Bl \ JBBBtts jfldpWßW
mm ',^\|i^ißig
» - ”» - ..■...‘Z'dsL —-i^p—Jt
This monster of a mechanical age is
not anti-social —for the steam shovel
has made possible the employment of
vast numbers of workers.
By Wilfred Owen
VER since man created machines
to multiply his powers of pro
duction there has been divided
opinion regarding the effects
E
upon employment which follow the
adoption of technological improve
ments. With equal fervor the machine
is blamed for unemployment and
praised as the agent of our economic
supremacy, and while the prophets of
calamity see industrial salvation only
in their land of Erewhon, Utopians are
joyfully measuring production to in
finity. .. .
The fact remains, however, that
while machinery may and often does
displace the laborer, it also has the
power of creating employment, and net
effects are always dependent on par
ticular circumstances, many of which
lie beyond the machine.
When the electric refrigerator began
to bar the ice man from America s back
doors, many a disciple of the “good old
days” lamented his passing. They over
looked the fact that electric refrigera
tion had mined the industrial roll call,
creating new employment and new
purchasing power, and that the mar
keting of this new machine was stimu
lating a demand for ice. By 1930 the
number of ice dealers had increased
237 per cent over the census figures of
a decade before.
A number of such examples have
been pointed out by the Machinery In
stitute to illustrate the possibilities of
technological improvements in the crea
tion of employment and prosperity.
The modern office building, for ex
ample, is alive with the lesser monsters
of a mechanised age: dictaphones, cal
culators. typewriters, and other labor
saving devices. It might be supposed
that such equipment as this would
mean sharp reductions in the office
force. In reality it has made possible
an amount of clerical work which
could never have been attempted oy
unassisted labor, and in the period
from 1920 to 1930 the total number of
persons working as typists, stenog
raphers, bookkeepers, cashiers and ac
countants had increased by 392.000
A WELL-KNOWN iron monster is the
steam shovel, which digs and lifts
and loads materials that armies of men
might be doing by hand:-and we read
Vi Mr\ /I
ily acp,jit. witnout tmnking, the num
bers of workers who no longer dig for
a living.
But the steam shovel, while it has
admittedly displaced this type of un
skilled labor, has at the same time
made possible a program of industry
which might never have been dreamed
of had men and their shovels been re
quired to build its foundations. The
steam shovel, which has opened the
earth for endless roads and tower
ing skyscrapers, has created a tremen
dous new demand for raw materials,
public works, transportation, and plant
construction, employing a tremendous
succession of workers, from miner and
lumberman to steel workers, masons
carpenters, riveters, and a host oi
others.
When the dial telephone was installed
on less than 3 per cent of the Bell sys
tem in 1921, there were 190.000 opera
tors asking us. number, please? By
1930, with 32 per cent of the system on
dial service, the telephone girls we had
thought might disappear altogether
numbered 249.000. Telephone calls had
increased more than 100 per cent, at
the same time nearly doubling the need
for both telegraph and telephone line
men.
A prime example of the beneficial
effects upon the labor market, which
may be realized by the introduction of
machinery and mass production is the
automobile.
Had it been impossible to attain our
present labor-saving technique in the
manufacture of motor vehicles, it would
be difficult even to visualize the 28 mil
lions we now possess. It is reported
that m 1935 six million persons de
pended either directly or indirectly up
on the highway and motor vehicle in
dustries for their livelihood —one out of
every seven gainfully employed in the
United States.
In 1931 there were approximately a
million men engaged in the building of
roads, and two and a half million truck,
taxi, and bus drivers, and private
(MACH I HE MADE
> v ’ ,
riTiTMMYit 11 khhh iimi i
The Rust cotton picker in action. Mechanized farming is one type of
machinery which does at times permanently displace workers.
chauffeurs. The purchasing power
created by these new industries is tre
mendous.
'T’HE automobile is the largest con
sumer of rubber, mohair, plate glass,
lubricating oil, gasoline, nickel, lead
and steel. Our use of this latter prod
uct has increased from 2600 pounds per
capita in 1900 to 16,800 pounds in 1935.
Such are the salutary signs of machine
made industry.
We have purchased more clothing
than ever before since machinery made
possible its production at lower cost,
and though but a fraction of the hu
man labor formerly required is now
employed per unit of goods, demand has
so increased with lower prices that al
most a third more workers are making
\ / J 1
L c i TLi r V jfr **M
■l ~\ ~' \ .». m.
& / ■■
11. Ji
jk
B %
Operating the “ladeometer,” which
tests the resistance ol fabric colors
to the bleaching action oi the sun,
is one of the many new occupations
machines have made for women.
women’s clothing today than 10 or 12
years ago.
For every seven persons engaged in
,the manufacture of men’s furnishings
between 1923 and 1925 there now are
eight. The textile industry, according
to the National Industrial Conference
Board, was on the whole providing
more employment per unit output in
January, 1936, than in the same month
of 1929. Who would return to the spin
ning wheel?
Nevertheless, to conclude from these
examples* that machinery never causes
permanent displacement of labor would
be as far from the truth as to assert
that economic ailments are the inevi
table result of technological innovation.
The type of technical innovation most
likely to benefit the whole economic
system is that which is directed to the
manufacture of an entirely new com
modity or service which creates a net
increase in wealth.
Autos, radio, sound pictures and air
planes fall in this category of goods,
constituting a type of technical progress
which makes new employment and
higher living standards.
Technological unemployment is not a
new economic phenomenon, but it has
become of very considerable signifi
cance with the more rapid rate of tech
nical change and with the multiplying
complexity of our industrial structure.
We blame the machines which have
created such amazing volumes of goods,
although it is our own inability to use
them properly, as well as certain other
factors in our economy, which underlie
our difficulties.