not blind us to the existence of long-run problems which we had before and which will be with us again. While our social security measures have been effective, they have not done the whole job they were designed to do. The number of persons with long spells of joblessness rose rapidly after the first of 1958. By August 1958, about 1 million workers had been out of work for 6 months or longer. Such long-time unemployment causes workers to exhaust their benefit rights under the State unemployment insurance systems.

Under the Temporary Unemployment Compensation Act, approved in the early summer of 1958, new programs were set up in about three-fourths of the States to extend the duration of benefit payments. By the end of November, slightly more than 1.3 million jobless persons had received a total of $342,414,716 under the temporary programs and over 540,000 of the unemployed had exhausted their extended benefits. This program is scheduled to end on March 31, 1959.

What then are among the most pressing problems which must be met in the future in terms of the labor force? The first and most obvious of these is the forthcoming flood of youth. Beginning in the 1960's, the number of young people in the labor force will vastly increase-a rise of about 600,000 per year in workers under the age of 25. These are the wartime babies coming to maturity. They have been a problem to our educational system during the 1950's, and will continue to be a problem for higher education in the 1960's. In addition, they will certainly create

problems of training, occupational choice, and national manpower policies. They offer a resource which can be useful in meeting the manpower needs of an expanding economy, but they also constitute a labor force which must be fitted. as effectively as possible into our productive system.

At the other extreme is the continued growth in the number of aged. Between 1960 and 1965, there will be an annual increase on the average of about one-half million workers beyond the age of 45 and a small increase in the numbers of those between the ages of 25 and 45-the workers in the prime of life and experience.

If a rapidly expanding economy is to be maintained, there is no reason why 1 million additional workers cannot be absorbed every year, including the difficult fact that over half of these will be the very young and nearly half of them rather old. The normal gains of productivity, say 3 percent per year, will require the finding of a total of about 7 to 8 million new jobs in a 5-year period. That number plus the growth in the labor force of 64 million makes a total of about 14 million who will become available for employment in the 5-year period 1960-65.

On one side, a larger labor force presents problems of industrial management and labor utilization. On the other side, these labor resources provide the opportunity for a hundred-billiondollar increase in the Nation's annual product, with a corresponding rise in the well-being of the American people.

Paid Holidays in Major Contracts, 1958

HOLIDAY PROVISIONS in major contracts have been extended and liberalized significantly since 1950. Nine out of 10 major agreements in effect in 1958 provided for paid holidays, as against about 3 out of 4 in 1950. In 1958, the principal industries in which most workers under major agreements did not receive paid holidays were coal mining and construction. Although there has been little change in the prevalence of paid holiday provisions since 1952-53, the number of paid holidays has increased significantly. (See chart 1.) Formal halfday holidays have also become more common. Rates of pay for work on paid holidays have been increased in many agreements.

The study from which this article was drawn 1 was based on an analysis of 1,736 collective bargaining agreements, each covering 1,000 or more

workers, or virtually all such agreements in the United States, exclusive of railroads and airlines.3 The 7.8 million workers covered represented about half of all the workers estimated to be under agreements in the United States, exclusive of railroad and airline agreements. Of these, 5 million workers, covered by 1,122 agreements, were in manu

1 Paid Holiday Provisions in Major Union Contracts, 1958, BLS Bull. 1248. The bulletin also presents data on service and work requirements for holiday pay eligibility, holidays falling on Saturday and unscheduled workdays, and unpaid holidays. For data on holiday provisions in union agreements in effect in 1950 and 1952-53, see Holiday Provisions in Union Agreements, 1950 (in Monthly Labor Review, January 1951, pp. 24-27) and Holiday Provisions in Union Agreements in 1952-53 (in Monthly Labor Review, February 1954, pp. 128-133).

2 All but 71 of the 1,736 agreements were in effect during 1958. (These agreements expired late in 1957, and subsequent agreements were not available at the time of the study.) Approximately 50 percent of the agreements were scheduled to expire in 1958. Termination in 1959 was stipulated in about 35 percent. Of the remaining 209 long-term agreements, 12 did not list a specific termination date.

For an analysis of the characteristics of the agreements studied, see Characteristics of Major Union Contracts (in Monthly Labor Review, July 1956, pp. 805-811.

Agreements for the airline and railroad industries are not collected by the Bureau and, therefore, are not included in this study.

! Includes 6 agreements in the food processing industry in which unworked holidays are paid for only when they occur during the intercampaign or nonprocessing season; 7 communications contracts which specify a definite number of paid holidays for all or the majority of locations, plus additional holidays for designated areas, and 1 apparel agreement which provides for a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 6 holidays, based on date of employee's entrance on duty. Also included are 2 agreements with paid holiday provisions which make no reference to the number to be granted. Other provisions were found in 4 agreements.

NOTE: Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not equal totals.

facturing, and 614 agreements applied to 3 million workers in nonmanufacturing establishments (table 1).

Prevalence of Paid Holidays

Workers covered by 9 out of 10 major collective bargaining agreements were allowed time off without loss of pay to observe national and religious holidays, holidays traditionally observed in some States or areas, and other days declared holidays by employers. The 1,561 contracts included 153 which also recognized certain unpaid holidays.

Paid holiday provisions were more prevalent in manufacturing than in nonmanufacturing agreements. Virtually all of the agreements in the manufacturing industries contained such provisions, as against approximately three-fourths of the major nonmanufacturing agreements. The absence of paid holiday provisions in many construction industry contracts largely accounted for this difference. All agreements in 16 manufacturing industries and 1 nonmanufacturing industry provided for paid holidays.

Workers covered by slightly more than 30 percent of the agreements providing paid holidays received less than 7 full days (table 2). Seven full-day holidays, the most common overall provision, were provided by about 40 percent of the manufacturing and about 25 percent of the nonmanufacturing agreements. However, as the number of holidays increased, the more liberal practices were found among nonmanufacturing industries. Thus, slightly more than 20 percent of the nonmanufacturing contracts provided for 8 days, as against about 15 percent in manufacturing, and nonmanufacturing agreements accounted for more than half of those granting 9 days

1 For the year 1958, 2 half days were taken as the equivalent of 1 full day; thus, for example, 6 full days and 2 half days were counted, for this purpose, as 7 days.

In addition to the 20 agreements designated as "Other" in table 2, this chart includes under this category agreements (also shown in table 2) providing for only 1 half day in addition to full-day holidays; e. g., 6 full days plus 1 half day.

of the 133 agreements providing 9 or more holidays were found (table 3). Transportation, however, was also one of the few industries in which fewer than 6 paid holidays were specified in a significant number of agreements, the other industries being hotels and restaurants, textile-mill products, and apparel. Provisions for 7 full days were found in about half or more of the agreements providing paid holidays in rubber, stone and glass, primary metals, fabricated metal products, machinery (except electrical), and electrical machinery industries.

Paid half holidays were most prevalent in apparel, transportation equipment, and machinery (except electrical)—1 or more paid half holidays were specified in about a third or more of the agreements for these 3 industries. Other industries in which half holidays were frequent were electrical machinery and fabricated-metal products.

2 Excludes railroad and airline industries.

Twenty agreements included in this study contained holiday provisions which conformed to no specific pattern. Some contracts negotiated in seasonal industries allowed paid holidays only if they occurred outside the period of most heavily concentrated work. Representative of this type of provision were six food processing agreements which expressed this limitation generally as follows:

The following are declared [paid] holidays if they occur during the intercampaign season: New Year's Day, Good Friday, Decoration Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day... There shall be no holidays during the campaign season . . . The company agrees to pay employees covered by this agreement during campaign at 11⁄2 times the regular scheduled straight-time rates. for the time worked on the following holidays: Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day . . . .

Holiday allowances which varied by location were specified in 7 communications agreements, all

Birthday, was listed in almost 30 percent of the agreements with paid holiday provisions. Good Friday, added as the seventh holiday in most agreements negotiated in 1956 by the United Steelworkers, was mentioned in 22 percent, and Veterans Day (November 11) in about 18 percent of the agreements. For this study, Election Day was not considered as a paid holiday if employees were allowed annually less than a half day off; a full day was provided by 8 percent of the contracts, and a half day in 2 percent.

Extending the Christmas holiday by adding either a full day or a half-day holiday and observing a half-day holiday on the day preceding New Year's Day represent recent innovations in holiday scheduling. Similarly, the day after Thanksgiving Day was celebrated as a formal holiday in a small number of agreements. Holidays observed in certain areas only, such as Patriot's Day in Massachusetts and other parts of New England,