December 14, 1942

WOMEN IN WORKFORCE

One of Ten Wage Earners Now Women

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Labor Department reports that now one in every ten wage earners is a woman. Prior to last year’s attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into the war, that ratio was one in one hundred. The change in the ratio is due to an increase of five hundred thousand female factory workers over the first year of the war. Yet report of this increase comes just five days after Undersecretary of War Robert E. Patterson warned that production in the United States is not meeting the requirements of the Allied war effort. Patterson called for a forty-eight hour work week when stated, in part, “We are not getting all we could out of industry…”. The current average number of hours worked is 42.8 per week.