The Unskilled Woman

Horowhenua Chronicle, 24 May 1915, Page 4

The Unskilled Woman

From Our Lady Correspondent,

London, March 19

The industrial dislocation owing to the war has been much less serious

among men than among women During the September and October of last year, unemployment amongst women in England was very serious, and a national committee, the Central Committee on AVemen's Employment, was set up by the Government to invito schemes for the relief ol women unemployed owing to the war. The committee decided as a general principle, that where possible relief should take the form not of charity, but of maintenance under training, the first training schemes which were started gave mainly only training in needlework. This was before it was known what classes of workers were specially hit. j It soon became evident, however that I apart from middle-class professional women, whose eases are mosfly dealt with by voluntary botTies, women were ' unemployed in specially stilled trades which for the most part provided luxuries, and in less skilled domestic or semi-domestic work such as office cleaning and housework. Much economy was exercised by the public who failed U understand that mere retrenchment often produces more positive harm than the good it achieves. The skilled occupations which have been specially hit by the war were shorthand-typing and foreign correspondence, skilled and court dressmaking, and the distributive trades. Separate treatment and training were obviously desirable for this distinct type of workers. As trade revived many of the skilled workers lound suitable employment in the ordinary way. The dressmakers, specially those who had some knowledge of machining work, were speedily absorbed in the various branches' of the tailoring trade. The London County Council set up centres in which commercial subjects, in eluding foreign languages, were taught, and in these centres, unemployed typists, and foreign correspondence clerks were drafted, maintenance was paid and travelling expenses allowed. After .some months' experience of the various training centres, and now that trade has absorbed the majority oi the more skilled workers, it is seen that the problem is largely concerned with the normal type of unskilled women, and indeed the majority of women now in the training centres are unskilled women, many oi them widows and others old and somewhat infirm, who. even in times of prosperity, are always very near, it not below, the destitution limit. They are mostly women of no particular training or skill. A crisis lias at one time or another occurred in their lives ,and they have had to turn, with friends or skill, in a clumsy and hopeless way to seek their living in household drudgery in much the same way as they might have had to turn a century ago. The problem of this unorganised, mass of untrained domestic workers, who work with needless inefficiency and it exceedingly low rates, did not arise out of war conditions, though the war doubtless accentuated it. The war however, has caused England to recognise and deal with what is after all hut an extreme instance of a normal state of affairs. In -:-very borough training centres have been sei up. and now we find to a very large extent that they are full of the class of women referred to colloquially as ''chare."