By Dorothy C. Kahn
Former President, American Association of Social Workers

Revised by Thomas K. Ford, American Historical Association
and Edwin G. Nourse, VP, Brookings Institute

(Published September 1944)

Introduction

Is There Going to Be Enough Work to Go Around?

• What have we learned from the war?
• What happened before?
• What is going on now?
• How big is the task?
• What will happen to the labor force?
• The core of the problem
• What, then, is full employment?
• How do different people approach the problem?

What Is Actually Being Done about Postwar Employment?

• What is business doing?
• What is labor doing?
• What is government doing?
• The question of inspiring confidence
• What about public works?

What Special Aids for Servicemen Will There Be?

• Where can an ex-GI get the straight dope?
• What about that old job or a new one?
• Do you want education and training?
• Where does unemployment insurance fit in?

To the Leader

Suggestions for Further Reading

Introduction

Jobs in the post-war world is a topic of interest to every officer and man in the United States Army, and for that matter, in all armies. We are interested be-cause we are all involved, or will be. A large majority o f us expect to resume a normal working life when we are discharged from the Army; most of us must, of necessity, find some kind of employment.

“No one can foresee the kind of world which the war will leave behind, but we are subject to hopes and fears and the two play round robin when we attempt to imagine ourselves home and seeking a job. What-ever our powers of foresight, it is advisable to consider that the world we must inherit will be a different world from the one we left; and the job we left will not necessarily be the one to which we will return. What is important is that we fend a job that will give us a decent living.

“Every one of us has enough at stake to consider the facts presented with care, and to prepare ourselves for a future whose limits and features still lie beyond the horizon. One way to prepare for that future is to give it as much study as the present permits and to make of the present, whenever possible, a training laboratory for the future.” (From “Jobs after the War,” vol. II, no. 6, Feb. 9, 1944, of Army Talks—ETOUSA.)