The element of time unemployed is an important factor in determining annual earnings. While in nearly every occupation there is a limit to the demand, in domestic service there is no limit and hence few persons are necessarily without employment. The most important illustration of this point is derived from the report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor on the unemployed in that state in 1885.[215] Of the total number of women in the state engaged in remunerative occupations at the time, thirty per cent were unemployed. These were distributed as regards occupations as follows: Manufacturing industries 78.22 Government and professional services 9.08 Domestic service 6.33 Personal service 3.99 Trade 1.98 Minor occupations .40 But if the number of unemployed is compared with the total number employed in each industry, a still lower percentage of unemployed is found in domestic service. A comparison with other wage earners will make clear this point. The percentage of the unemployed in the leading industries in which women are engaged was as follows: Straw-workers 93.74 Boot and shoe makers 71.08 Teachers 49.58 Woollen mill operatives 45.02 Cotton mill operatives 43.59 Hosiery mill operatives 40.56 Tailoresses 32.98 Milliners 27.46 Seamstresses 27.08 Dressmakers 23.99 Paper mill operatives 21.26 Saleswomen 11.73 Book-keepers and clerks 9.19 Servants in families 6.78 Housekeepers 3.65 The demand for domestic servants varies in the different states, but the condition of the unemployed in this occupation in Massachusetts may perhaps be considered fairly typical of that in other localities. (9) High wages are maintained without the aid of strikes or combinations on the part of the employees. In but five states are strikes reported among domestic employees;[216] they number but twenty-two and involve less than seven hundred persons, all of them being connected with hotels or restaurants, and nine tenths of them men. Only two instances of permanent organization among this class have come to notice, and neither of these has had as its object the increase of wages. The strike in domestic service assumes the form of a “notice,” is individual in character, and is able to accomplish its object without the organized effort considered necessary in other occupations where the supply of laborers is greater than the demand.