WOMEN IN INDUSTRY
EFFECT OF WAR TIME NEEDS. The expectation that one result of the British Government’s proposals regarding manpower will be the. sub- ; stitution on a big scale of women for . men in appropriate occupations, lends ■ particular interest, notes “The Times” Trade and Engineering Supplement, to 1 the paper on “Women in Industry,” read before the Royal Society of Arts by Miss Caroline Haslett, adviser to the British Ministry of Labour on women’s training. During the war of 1914-18 the estimated number of women employed in industry rose from 2,179,000 to 2.971,000, most of the increase of 792,000 being in the metal trades and Government ordnance factories. Although there was afterward a tendency to revert to the pre-1914 position, new conditions prevented a complete reversion, among them being the improvement in factory conditions, simplification of processes, mechanisation. the cheapness of women’s labour, and the new industries in which there was no tradition of men’s labour. In 1939, therefore, circumstances were not 1 exactly the same as in 1914, and many women were to be found occupying
important positions in industry. Referring to the training schemes of both the Government and private firms, and discussing the question of absorbing the women when they are trained. Miss Haslett said that much remains to be done by both employers and trainees. The latter must try to loosen their home ties, while the former must abandon many pre-judgments about women, many, especially in the lighter indus-
■ tries, being used to the children who . come into work at 15, marry at 19 or . 20, or continue to work until they reach the age of 25 or perhaps 35. These employers, however, had little experience of the type of woman now anxious to undertake war work in industry. They must realise that at the age of 30 a woman was not too old to do skilled work, and they must overcome the fixed idea that women could do only repetitive work. Miss Haslett proceeded to give many instances of the kind of work the new trainees in this war are doing. There is no doubt that they will be ’ worthy | successors of the pioneers of the 1914 war. when, as the Technical Adviser to the Labour Supply Department of r the Ministry of Munitions declared: "In no branch of work is the grit and determination of women more strikingly shown than in the splendid work they are doing in constructional engineering, and in boiler, shipyard, blast furnace and foundry work.” In the appeal for women now being made in Britain a figure of 500,000 is mentioned, and every employer and works manager will have to tackle the question of diluting the ranks of his skilled workers.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1941, Page 6
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451WOMEN IN INDUSTRY Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1941, Page 6
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