The Failure of the State Employment Service; O. Cooley

THE FAIL URE OF STATE EMPLOYMENT THE SERVICE FEW, if any, private business ventures have been more pushed around and kicked about by government than have employment agencies. Even at the turn of the century the employment agent was looked upon as a grasping character, intent upon exploiting the "poor worker" when he was most in need. Scarcely anyone bothered to consider why the jobless might seek an agent's help, thus placing themselves in his power. So it was that legislators passed laws strictly regulating the agencies and setting up "free" state employment services to compete with them. Since 1933, all the state services have operated under the wing of the United States Employment Service, which pays their bills. Even their friends admit that the state employment services show a dismal record. As early as 1914, a writer in the National Municipal Review stated that 19 states had such services but, except in Wisconsin, they were "a negligible factor in the labor market."l In 1931, Aaron 1 F. A. Kellor in National Municipal Review, April, 1914.

Mr. Cooley is Associate Professor of Economics at Ohio Northern University. 142 THE FAILURE OF THE STATE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE 143 Director and Paul Douglas (now U. S. Senator) ob served: "The high responsibilities which are latent in public employment work are ... almost totally unreal ized in the actual practice of the offices."2W. H. Miernyk found in a sample study of Massachusetts workers in the early 1950's that 45 per cent learned of their jobs through friends and relatives and 35 per cent located jobs by ap plying at the gate. Only 7 per cent were placed by the state employment service, although all who apply for unemployment compensation automatically are regis tered with the latter. 3 Former Secretary of Labor, James P. Mitchell, stated in 1958 that nonagricultural employment had increased by over nine million workers in the preceding decade but that nonagricultural placements by the state employ ment services had declined. 4 Employers who have job openings are loathe to turn to the state employment service as a reliable source of high-grade labor. Many employers do not even report their job openings to the service, preferring to fill the openings in their own way-that is, by means of "help wanted" ads, through private employment firms (of which there are some 4,400 throughout the country) and by hiring at the gate.

2 A. Director and P. Douglas, The Proble,ms of Unemployment (New York, 1931), p. 342. S W. H. Miernyk, Inter-Industry Labor Mobility (Boston: Bureau of Business & Economic Research, Northeastern University, 1955), p.22. 4 Quoted by W. Haber and W. J. Cohen, Social Security: Pro grams, Problems and Policies (Homewood, Ill., 1960), p. 327.

144 OSCAR W. COOLEY Some of the Complications When the state employment services were married to the unemployment compensation system in the 1930's, they were given the responsibility of getting jobs for com pensation claimants. This partially explains why the ap plicants referred by the state services are not eagerly snapped up by employers; they may lack the ability to hold a job. Of all the job-seekers, they presumably are the least thrifty, and the most likely to apply for public aid; neither characteristic recommends them highly to employers. They are also a heterogeneous lot, for the employment service must seek jobs for all who apply and who are deemed eligible for compensation. Furthermore, employment service officials are bureau crats, paid out of public funds rather than by those whom they serve; they lack the economic incentive to give personal service. Since many job openings are not listed with the un popular state employment services, such openings may never be known to compensation claimants. Many of the latter do not exert themselves to find jobs, nor are they urged by employment service officials to do so. Thus, the service's own lack of knowledge of the jobs available actually encourages people to remain idle and collect compensation.

More and more the government employment service in each state is operating as a general employment ex change, for job-seekers not receiving conlpensation as well as those who are, and even trying to place persons who THE FAILURE OF THE STATE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE 145 are already employed but want other jobs. Handsome offices are being built to impress employers and win their patronage. A recent bulletin describes the invasion of the em ployment agency field taking place in Colorado. 5 Bern ard Teets, director of the state employment service, is quoted as saying that 60 to 65 per cent of his appropria tion of $2,700,000 for 1958 was devoted to serving al ready employed persons, that his bureau was handling 60 per cent of the employment business in the state, and that in five years it would handle 90 per cent. His budget had more than doubled in the preceding five years. The Colorado state service functions like a private employment firm, advertising widely for business, and performing management consulting functions. When questioned about using tax money to create an empire in competition with private enterprise agencies, Teets replied: "We are not living in a free enterprise system, but rather operating under a controlled economy."6 In The Field Representative and His Work, a manual published in 1940 by the Ohio State Employment Service, personnel are instructed how they should meet criticism: If the employer says, HI am against government in business ... including the OSES," tell him OSES was founded in 1890 at the request of labor and employers to combat the abuses which were practiced by private agencies. The bringing to5 "Birth of a Monster:' 1959. Bulletin published by private employment agencies.

6 Denver Daily Journal, July 9, 1959, as quoted by John Fanning in "The United States Employment Service Story."

146 OSCAR W. COOLEY gether of unemployed workers and employers' jobs is logically a community function, a government function the same as the post office, the police, and fire departments-a service to all the citizens of the community ... If the employer says, "We use private agencies because the applicant is more likely to stick and work harder when he has to pay for a job," say: Workers are more efficient when free from worries. Paying for a job does not imply that applicant is better or more efficient. In many cases it is quite the opposite, because the payment of a fee puts a decided hardship on the worker and causes financial worries. The Service charges no fee either to you or to the worker. The implication in this document is that workers and employers need to be protected by a solicitous state from the "abuses" of private employment agencies. Fee charging, it seems, is one such abuse.

The advertisement, "No charge to employer or em ployee," which is freely used by the state employment serv ice in its radio and other appeals, suggests that finding jobs for people is rightfully a charity, not a business. This notion stems from the viewpoint that the jobless are disadvantaged persons, innocent victims of a faulty sys stem, which inevitably disemploys some. They are, it seems, objects of charity to be cared for by a social agency. A Dual Role To Play The efficiency of the agency which mothers the unem ployed is greatly affected by the dual role which it must play: first, the payment of compensation to the jobless registrant, and second, the finding of a job for him. To THE FAILURE OF THE STATE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE 147 picture this process of "carrying water on both shoul ders," let us assume that the function of paying compen sation is performed byC, the employment-getting func tion by E.

C's functions are, first, to interview the claimant with a view to determining his eligibility to receive compen sation; second, to determine the amount of compensation to which he is entitled and authorize its payment; and third, to maintain a continuous check on his eligibility and cut off payments when he comes to the end of his benefit period. E's functions are, first, to record the working history of the claimant, his qualifications and skills; second, to record the job openings reported by employers; and third, to refer the claimant to jobs which seem suitable, one after another, until he is hired. C, it should be noted, is a sort of "employer." He pays the claimant a sum of money weekly for a limited period of time (maximum: 26 weeks in most states, unless in creased to 39 by federal supplemental compensation). E, meanwhile, is trying to interest the claimant in en tering the service of another employer who will pay him a higher wage (in most cases), perhaps indefinitely, but who also will require some 40 hours per week of labor, performed according to the employer'S directions, where as C requires no labor. The claimant naturally weighs these two alternatives, balancing one against the other.

At first glance, C's proposition would seem the less lucrative since unemployment pay averages but $31 per week (proposed legislation would raise it to two-thirds 148 OSCAR W. COOLEY the worker's average wage 7). Upon examination, how ever, the offer of pay while idle has its attraction. Unem ployment compensation is not subject to income tax, either federal or state. The recipient has no expense for transportation to and from work, lunches, work clothing, or union dues. And-he has his leisure, which has value, he alone knows how much. Thus, the claimant's cash benefit is determined by C, within limits set by the law, but the value of his leisure is completely beyond the control or even the knowledge of C. Hence, the sum of the two, or his total idleness wage, may easily exceed the wage offered by E's client. The wages of idleness compete with the wages of work, and E has an uphill task.

If the claimant does not want to take the job which E makes available to him, he can easily find an excuse. For example, the wage is lower than he is accustomed to receive (under present law compensation cannot be denied to a claimant who refuses a job on the ground that it offers substantially less wage and poorer condi tions than prevail for similar work in the locality). Or the job is a long distance from his home; this, too, is an allowable excuse. He, a good union man, would be ex pected to work with "scabs." The work is beneath him. The work is above him. It is women's work. Truly, the acceptable excuses are legion. Often a claimant's excuse comes as no surprise to E. He has expected it. Why, then, did he bother to make the referral? Perhaps because, in order to collect his 7 HR 7640, introduced in June, 1961.

THE FAILURE OF THE STATE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE 149 week's stipend from C, the claimant must he able to re port that he was referred to a job, applied, and found it unsuitable or was rejected. Some states suggest that a compensation claimant be stir himself and look for a job independently. New York serves notice on the claimant, "You are expected to look for a job on your own," but according to employers such as Seth Levine, executive of a New York City shoe factory, this search-for-work requirement "is, in practice, a dead letter. Dozens of claimants have told me that the unemployment office makes only the most perfunctory inquiries about their job-seeking efforts. Usually a mere visit to the union hall suffices."8 The New Jersey law states that a person laid off for not more than four weeks need not look for work at all but just report to C for his check, and the New Jersey state director of employment security is empowered to waive the search-for-work requirement completely for all claimants if he thinks economic conditions warrant.

Before 1946 no independent search for work was ordi narily required; now, 28 states specifically require it. Six teen of these made the change after abuses of the unem ployment compensation system were exposed in the 1940's. However, the federal government is on record as opposing any general requirement that workers con duct an independent search for work. 9 8 S. Levine, "How To Play the Unemployment Insurance Game:' Harper's, August, 1961. 9 R. Altman, Availability for Work, a Study in Unemployment Compensation (Harvard, 1950), p. 118.

150 OSCAR W. COOLEY Those responsible for government employment services should make up their minds what they want to do. Do they want to get unemployed people into jobs? Then it would seem logical to cease paying them liberally to re main idle. But, if they want to turn what was intended to be temporary, emergency unemployment relief into an outright dole, then they should quit trying to oper ate employment agencies. Private Agencies The private employment specialist is still in business, despite the massive invasion of his field by the govern ment. The "blue-collar" trade having been largely lured to the "free" state employment offices, private firms now concentrate on placement of white-collar people, includ ing many technicians and executives. For example, one Pittsburgh agency in 1960 placed 500 executives, 183 of them as managers. Some 85 to 90 per cent of placements by private agen cies are people already employed but seeking greener pastures. In about two-thirds of the placements, the em ployer pays the agency fee, this practice having increased in recent years. That employers are willing to pay pri vate agencies to find employees for them indicates a de mand for the service.

To an increasing extent, private agencies are placing people in jobs outside the immediate locality. This is accomplished not only through branch officesbut through cooperative arrangements between agencies. For examTHE FAILURE OF THE STATE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE 151 pIe, there is the National Association of Personnel Con sultants, which embraces 62 member agencies in 32 states. Copies of job orders are provided each member by the agency in which the order originates. A resume of the qualifications of the applicant to whom the job is re ferred, including three references, is given the em ployer. Thus, jobs and applicant are matched, even though widely separated. Private employment firms cooperate even more broadly through the National Employment Association, Detroit, which promotes standards of ethical practice and defends the profession from governmental attack and encroach ment. Beyond publishing general information regarding the demand and supply of workers in various areas, the United States Employment Service does little to promote inter-area mobility. Its ineffectiveness was noted by the Committee for Economic Development, in a recent study of distressed areas: "Even were the exchange of information among the employment offices of the nation operating efficiently, the present practice virtually guarantees that the official employment agencies do not have comprehensive infor mation on employment opportunities. The reason for this is that the Employment Service is deeply involved in the administration of unemployment insurance-and necessarily SO."10 10 Distressed Areas in a Growing Economy (Research and Policy Committee, Committee for Economic Development, New York, June, 1961).

152 OSCAR W. COOLEY The jobless worker who registers with the local "un employment office" and then goes home to live on his compensation while he awaits a job that may never come is surely less mobile than the one who registers with a private employment agency, agrees to pay it a fee when and if he takes a job he is referred to, and meanwhile lives on his savings and odd-job income under the urg ency of getting a job in the near future. Private employment agencies, allowed to operate freely and without "competition" by tax-supported bureaus, would help substantially to connect workers with jobs and give the increased mobility today's worker so greatly needs.