Wilford Isbell King

English

Research Papers in Economics

This PDF is a selection from an out-of-print volume from the National
Bureau of Economic Research
Volume Title: Employment Hours and Earnings in Prosperity and Depression,
United States, 1920-1922
Volume Author/Editor: Wilford Isbell King
Volume Publisher: NBER
Volume ISBN: 0-87014-004-3
Volume URL: http://www.nber.org/books/king23-1
Publication Date: 1923
Chapter Title: Summary
Chapter Author: Wilford Isbell King
Chapter URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c4870
Chapter pages in book: (p. 142 - 144)CHAPTER VI
SUMMARY
I. INTRODUCTION
1. Except in one or two minor details, the form of the questionnaire sent
to employers proved highly satisfactory and may be helpful to organi-
zations desirous of collecting complete employment records.
2. The fact that many employers reported on the basis of estimates
rather than actual records does not appear to have introduced bias
into the conclusions. The errors arising from the use of estimates are
probably smaller than would be found in results based solely upon
actual records, because the limited number of the latter obtainable
would constitute a sample too small to be trustworthy.
II. THE NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES
1. Employment is capable of accurate measurement—the same can
scarcely be said of unemployment, for the volume of the latter depends
very largely upon the relationship between the price asked and the
price offered for labor.
2. In 1920—22, the business cycle caused but few members of the families
of farmers and other employers to shift from one industry to another.
3. During the 1921 depression the farmers hired about the same number
of employees as they did in the previous year. Many industries laid
off a large fraction of their working forces but none took on any con-
siderable number of workers.It follows that there was a great reduc-
tion in the total volume of employment.
4. The total number of employees on all pay rolls in the United States
diminished by about, one-seventh between the third quarter of 1920
and the same period in 1921.
5.Although,in 1920, all enterprises having over 100 employees each,
together gave employment to only about half the employees then at
work in the United States, they were responsible for more than three-
fourths of all lay-offs that occurred during the depression.
III. THE VOLUME OF EMPLOYMENT
1. Part-time work as a palliative for unemployment was resorted to by
relatively few employers and, at the lowest point of the depression,
employees on the pay rolls still averaged 95.3 per cent of full time.
142SUMMARY 143
2. The total number of employee hours worked diminished' by about
one-sixth between the boom of 1920 and the depression of 1921. Fac-
tories, mines, railways, and construction enterprises were responsible
for the largest part of the total absolute reduction in employment.
3. When enterprises are classified into three groups on the basis of the
number of persons employed per concern in the first quarter of 1920,
the approximate total reduction in employee hours brought about by
the depression was as follows:
Number of employees per enterprise
Reduction in total
time worked
(millions of hours)
Per cent of
peak time
lost
20 or fewt'r
21 to 100
Over100
214
405
2,592
3
14
28
4. Statistics of the numbers on the pay rolls and of total wages and
salaries paid are not sufficient to give an accurate picture of changes
in the number of employee hours worked—in other words, they furnish
oniy approximate gauges for measuring fluctuations in the volume of
employment.
IV.THEHOURS WORKED PER WEEK
1. Small scale enterprises in general have longer full-time hours for their
employees than do larger plants.
2. The longest average full-time hours per week recorded for the first
quarter of 1922 were in domestic and personal service (56.7) and the
shortest were in building and construction (42.9).
3. The average employee in the first quarter of 1922 worked 48.6 hours
per week, or just a trifle more than an eight-hour day for a six-day
week.
4. In the same period, employees engaged in domestic and personal ser-
vice actually worked the longest hours per week (55.5), while those
employed in textile and leather factories put in the shortest hours
(43 .0).
5. On the farms of the United States, persons hired by the week or month
work longer hours than do those hired by the day. Hired men put in
more hours per week than do hired girls.The working time per week
is longer in the North than in the South. More hours per week are
worked on farms than in most urban industries.144 EMPLOYMENT HOURS AND EARNINGS
V. THE EARNINGS OF EMPLOYEES
1. Total payments for salaries and wages in 1921 amounted to about
$32,596,000,000, of which approximately one-third was paid out by
enterprises employing fewer than 21 persons and one-half by concerns
hiring over 100 workers each.
2. Salary and wage payments for the first quarter 011922 were less by
about 2,729 millions of dollars than were the total disbursements in
the third quarter of 1920.
3. The average earnings in 1920 of persons who, in that year, worked in
plants employing over 100 workers, was $1,544.In 1921, because of
unemployment, their earnings had fallen to $1,112, a loss of $432.
Those persons employed in enterprises having fewer than 21 employees
received only $1,121 each in 1920, but in 1921 their earnings had
declined only to $1,077, a diminution of $44.Workers employed in
concerns of intermediate size earned on the average $1,354 in 1920 and
$1,222 in 1921.
4. Female employees in general earn about three-fourths as much as
males.
5. The business depression of 1921 caused a material decline in rates of
pay per hour actually worked only in the fields of agriculture, manu-
facturing, mining, and steam railways.
6. The average rates of pay per hour in various industries cover a wide
range—the highest figure in 1921 being 76 cents per hour in finance,
and the lowest rate being 25 cents per hour in agriculture. The aver-
age for all industries at the close1921 was 51 cents per hour.
7. In the spring of 1921 the most common rates of pay per hour for
agricultural workers were as follows:
Males hired by the month 14 cents
Males hired by the day 21 cents
Females hired by the week 10 cents
Females hired by the day 10 cents
8. Average earnings per hour of persons employed on farms at that period
were somewhat higher, being as follows:
Males hired by the month 21 cents
Males hired by the day 25 cents
Females hired by the week 17 cents
Females hired by the day 15 cents
9. At the same date the average pay per hour f or male employees on
farms working by the month ranged from 33 cents per hour on the
Pacific Coast to 15 cents per hour in the South, while the average
pay of female employees hired by the week varied between 26 cents in
New England and 12 cents in the East South Central States.

Employment Hours and Earnings in Prosperity and Depression, United States, 1920-1922

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