The Negro at Work in New York City: A Study in Economic ProgressHaynes, George Edmund
History
The Negro at Work in New York City: A Study in Economic Progress
Haynes, George Edmund
African American businesspeople; African Americans -- Employment -- New York (State) -- New York; African Americans -- History
The efficiency of wage-earners attaches itself to the question of
wages. For domestic and personal service, a rich deposit of first-hand
material was available in the written testimonials, secured by
employment agencies, from the former employers of each applicant
seeking work. This is a requirement of the Employment Agencies' Law.
The investigator found two employment agencies which had used a
printed blank for securing this testimony from former employers of
applicants. These blanks asked four questions which are pertinent to
the matter of efficiency, and an additional space was left for further
remarks. The questions called for answers on the following points: (1)
length of time employed, whether applicant was (2) capable, (3) sober
or temperate and (4) honest.
In all, 10,095 such blanks were sent out by the agencies during
1906-1909. About 3,000 were returned. Of these about 1,800 replies
were excluded from this tabulation because they were received from
employers outside of New York, because they were not completely filled
out, or were not signed by the parties replying. For this study, 1,182
cases were used. Of these 139 were returned by the Post Office
Department as unclaimed, 21 were returned unanswered, while 20 replied
that the parties were never in their employ. So there were left 902
complete cases.
These give a fair indication of the whole. The first point of
efficiency is the length of service to one's employer. The records of
100 males do not furnish a sufficient number of cases for any sweeping
generalization, yet considerable light is given by the percentages.
These show that 30 out of the 100 remained with one employer less than
five months; that 24 remained six to eleven months, and 17 from one
year to one year and eleven months, while 25 were in one place for
more than two years. Special mention may be made of the five following
cases: One of them remained five years, one seven years, one six
years, one eight years, and one ten or eleven years, with the same
employer.
For the females, the percentages will apply well to all who are
wage-earners in domestic and personal service. Here, also, the largest
percentage, 24.1 per cent, remained in one place from six to eleven
months; 21.3 per cent remained three to five months; 16.7 per cent
remained one year to one year and eleven months, and fair percentages
obtain for the longer terms of service: namely, 5.2 per cent two years
to two years and eleven months, and 9 per cent three years or more. Of
those in one place of service for three or more years, five remained
four years; two, four years and a half; nine, five years; three, six
years; four, seven years; two, eight years; one, twelve years; three,
fifteen years, and one, "eighteen years off and on;" in all, a total
of thirty in 802 cases that were in one place of employment more than
three years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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