58.4%

1958

Service-Type Industries

47.2%

Goods-Producing Industries

52.8%

1961

1961

25.7 25.9

Goods-Producing Industries

percent, respectively (table 6). Nonwhite men were more heavily concentrated in the occupation groups which are the least skilled and have the highest rates of part-time work. Two out of every three nonwhite men on part-time jobs were service workers or farm and nonfarm laborers but only about two out of five white workers.

Unemployment

More workers had some unemployment in 1961 than in any other postwar year. A total of 15.1 million persons were jobless at some time during the year, about 1 million more than in either 1960 or 1958. The total number who looked for work during 1961 was about two and one-half times greater than the peak number looking for work in any one week that year.

By Industry and Occupation. The number of wage and salary workers who were unemployed during 1961 remained relatively unchanged over the year in the various industry groups, with the exception of the service industry. A one-fourth jump in unemployment in this industry accounted for most of the 700,000 rise in unemployment among hired workers. The increase resulted from the industry's higher unemployment rate, up 2.4 percentage points over the year to 13.7 percent, and also from an expansion in the number of persons who had worked in the industry during the year and therefore become subject to unemployment.

As is always the case, wage and salary workers in manufacturing, construction, and other goods

producing industries were much more likely to be hit by layoffs than workers in industries which cater to the needs for services by business and the consumer. Workers in construction, still an unstable industry where weather and completion of projects bring about temporary unemployment, had the highest unemployment rate and also the greatest proportion of unemployed nonfarm workers who were out of work a total of 15 weeks or who suffered at least three spells of unemployment (table 7). Over 40 percent of the construction workers were jobless at least once during 1961, twice the rate for manufacturing industries and three times that for the transportation and service industries.

The industrial and occupational composition of the unemployed has shifted appreciably since 1958. By 1961, a smaller proportion of the jobless wage workers were from goods-producing industries (agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and mining)-52.8 percent, compared with 58.4 percent in 1958-and relatively more were from service-type industries (government, trade, transportation, and finance, professional and personal services), as shown in chart 2. Among the various occupations, the shift has been from blue-collar to white-collar and service workers (chart 3). The adjustments reflect differential changes not only in the number who worked in particular industries and occupations, but also in the proportions who became unemployed.

These shifts were primarily influenced by trends in two major industries-manufacturing and service. The total number of wage and salary workers whose longest job during the year was in manufacturing was only a few hundred thousand higher in 1961 than in 1958, but in service industries, there was a dramatic rise of 2.6 million. Over the 4 years, the proportion of wage workers in manufacturing who had some unemployment fell by 2 percentage points to 22 percent; for those in service industries, the rate went up 2 points to 13.7 percent. As a result of these changes, factory workers comprised only 32 percent of all unemployed wage workers in 1961 compared with 36 percent 3 years earlier, while the proportion from service industries rose from 17 percent to 22 percent.

The rise in the number of unemployed whitecollar and service workers since 1958 has come

more from the increase in the number of persons who worked in these occupations than from the rise in the proportions unemployed. Employment in white-collar occupations expanded by 3.2 million and in service occupations by 1 million, but the number of blue-collar workers remained relatively unchanged. Employment in farm occupations fell by about 1 million over the 4-year period. The proportion of unemployed bluecollar workers who looked for work one time or more in a year remained comparatively unchanged at the very high level of 28 percent, but the unemployment rates for white-collar and service workers increased.

Personal Characteristics of the Unemployed. The number of unemployed women increased faster than men in 1961, but the proportion of workers who were unemployed continued to be greater for men than for women (table 8).

Unemployment also rose relatively more for workers under 25 years old as a group than for persons above this age. The sharpest increase in rates was for women 18 to 24 years old. Young workers are more likely than others to be job hunting as they find their place in the labor force, Chart 3. Occupations of Unemployed Persons With Work Experience, 1958-61

but it is the unemployed older worker who is most likely to be without a job longer and to have three spells or more of unemployment.

Relatively, jobless rates rose just as much for white workers as for nonwhite. However, the latter group had a steeper increase in the proportion who were jobless 15 weeks or more. Onehalf the unemployed nonwhites were without work that long in 1961 compared with 35 percent of the white workers. Nonwhites are more subject to repeated spells of joblessness, as they are more heavily concentrated in farm and nonfarm laboring jobs which usually last for a comparatively short time.

Women were a higher proportion of the unemployed in 1961 than in 1958 (35 versus 32 percent) as both their numbers in the annual work force and their unemployment rates rose (table 9). A much larger proportion of the unemployed in 1961 were persons under 25 years old than 3 years earlier. Here, too, the shift resulted from variations in the composition of the work force and in the proportions who were unemployed. Over one-half of the increase between 1958 and 1961

in the number in the annual work force occurred among persons under 25 years old, the age group which is most likely to contain new entrants in the labor market. Not only did the size of this age group increase, but the proportion who reported some unemployment rose while that for older persons remained the same.

Unemployment Among Part-Year Workers. Unemployment was more frequently indicated as the main reason for working less than a full year in 1961 than a year earlier. A total of 32.1 million workers were employed part year (less than 50 weeks) in both years, but the number who gave unemployment as the main reason for not working all year rose by 1.7 million to 10.7 million. Full-time workers who had been employed for over 6 months were more likely to say that they had not worked year round because of inability to find jobs than those who had worked for a shorter period.

In February 1962, a total of 11.8 million persons, or 15 percent of those who had worked at some time during 1961, were no longer in the

appear to determine whether they tend to remain in the labor force year round. A great majority of those no longer in the labor force in February were housewives and students, a substantial number of whom are in the labor market only temporarily and only when they are working. When they lose their job or when a short-time job ends, they tend to leave the labor market instead of looking for another; persons who lose a job and do not look for another one are not classified as unemployed.

There was no consistent relationship between the length of time a person was out of work and withdrawal from the labor force. Those who had been jobless a very short time (1 to 4 weeks) or a very long time (27 weeks or more) were more likely to be out of the labor market at the time of the survey than persons with intermediate periods of unemployment. However, among men, the

proportion who retired or left the labor force for reasons other than returning to school rose slightly with duration of unemployment.

The longer a person was unemployed in 1961 the greater the likelihood that he was also looking for work at the time of survey. Less than 10 percent of the part-year workers in ages 18 to 64 who had been out of work a very short time were jobless in February 1962, compared with 33 percent of those who had been jobless a very long time. For many persons, the various factors which contribute to their being unemployed for a substantial number of weeks during a yearlack of skills, advanced age, color, and residence in a depressed area-are persistent handicaps to their reemployment. Among men 18 to 64 years old who had been unemployed in 1961 but were still in the labor force, 90 percent of those jobless a very short time were working at the time of the