Factory Jobs Do Not Appeal To Bootblacks

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30289, 15 November 1963, Page 24

Factory Jobs Do Not Appeal To Bootblacks

MEXICO CITY. Figures do not lie, but sometimes they do not tell the truth, or the whole truth. Take, for instance, a recently-prepared study published by the Institute for Economic Studies (a private organisation.) Figures in that study show that unemployment in Mexico City seems so severe, that when a new factory opens, with jobs for 500 workers it is likely to receive 20,000 applications. The figures are not quite as grim as they appear, because many applicants already have work and are seeking the security and higher wages offered by factory jobs. Mexico City has 17 per cent of the national population which is growing ?* the rate of 4.2 per cent a year. According to the report. Mexico City also has about a quarter of the nation's industry and nearly half its commercial enterprises. It is also suffering from the same malady which hits other big cities in industrialising countries: too many people and too few jobs. The result is not unemploy, ment, but under-employment. Considered to be underemployed are bootblacks, car watchers. lottery ticket sellers and others with similar occupations. Figures in newspapers recently showed there are about 25.000 of these people in Mexico City alone. This is not considered to be an extraordinary total, taking into account the fact that the capital’s population is now around 5.000,000.

Even among the so-called under-employed, there are different levels. Some earn more than others, not because they are better educated or work harder, but because they are more enterprising and have a better business mind. This is especially true among bootblacks and newsboys, for instance. They take advantage ot the fact that they have access to big office buildings and other establishments. to peddle a number of commodities. such as belts, key-rings, books, pictures of film stars, pens, pencils and many other items. This, in addition to their regular occupation, earns them a net profit of about £1 a day which is not bad for an uneducated and unskilled worker. They never apply for the jobs at the factories, because they make about £3O a month, which is more or less what a receptionist or stenographer with a high sc’ 00l education, earns for working

eight hours a day on six days a week. Then too, there are typists and office clerks, both men and women who earn from £lB to £3O a month, working for small firms. Most of them are required to show secondary school examination certificates, must be well dressed and of good appearance. They are the workers who. in the hope of improving their living standards, apply for newly created factory jobs.—Reuter.