THE LAND OF JOBS FOB WOMEN

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 100, 22 January 1927, Page 18

THE LAND OF JOBS FOB WOMEN

Miss Ruth Anderson, the young American girl, who recently hail the unuaual task of making the gloves for the Dempsey-Tunney light, is only one among mauy American girls holding jobs recently regarded as nrasculiue (writes Wilson Midgley in the “Daily News”).

New York has a small baud of women taxi-drivers, and most big cities have two or three.

Women “realtors” arc common, especially in suburban districts, where the wife as a house-hunter is more important than the husband. Every big estate office has at leiist one woman on the staff, although she may be employed only to make acquaintances in a social way among women who may want to sell or buy houses. All the big banks in America arc apjiointing women as assistant-managers. They devote themselves entirely to women customers, and the city banks have “boudoirs,” with a maid it attendance, couches, and fresh flowers, to attract women to use bank facilities.

Elevator hands are now almost exclusively women. 'They are ousting men, just as they have done from typing and secretarial jobs. The few offices which want to employ men in these capacities nowadays find it hard to obtain them.

Women appointment officers are engaged iu most big establishments to interview applicants for jobs, and even where the majority of the posts open are for men, it is becoujjng the custom to let women appoint them. The theory is that women are better judges of character.

Many women find profitable occupation in selling by personal interview. Salesmanship! is one of the largest professions in America. Money is plentiful here, and so it is easy to persuade peojile to buy novelties. Stocks and shares are largely sold by this method. Women as well as men interview “prosjiects,” as they arc called, usually following up a postal campaign by making calls. Women are crowding 'men out of the superior jobs formerly held by men in the big shops and arc adding other jobs. Buyers and shopwalkers arc now nearly all women, jinny big stores have staffs of women advisers for their customers Some give advice about home ’decoration, others give advice on diess and style. Others are employed to accompany customers to the various departments, and help them to spend their money, and in a country with more nouveaux riches than any other in the world, their services arc largely taken advantage of. Among uncommon occupations for women is that of “guest observer.” They live in hotels, especially those frequented by families, and appear to be ordinary guests, but arc responsible for passing on the criticisms and comments of guests on the hotel management. An office was opened to provide “lady companions” for men visiting New York who wanted a lady to accompany them to dinners, theatres, and dances. The strictest references were demanded on either side, but in Spite of this, or because of it, it is otic of the few professions for women which has failed to establish itself.

Large numbers of city girls take up

summer work on fruit farms. They have replaced the ii responsible hobo. Five hundred of them in New York alone gave up their jobs last summer under a schenie arranged by Miss Rothstein, .superintendent of the State Labour Bureau. They go in parties to the fruit-growing districts, sjicnd the summer there, and return to office work in the winter. 'They live in camps much as English hoppers do, and the farmers are cnhusiastic about their work. -