GIRLS AND WORK

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 3238, 4 December 1930, Page 7

GIRLS AND WORK

GREAT PROBLEM IN - LONDON. The difficulty of securing domestic servants in England, although 300,000 women are on the unemployment register, was dealt with in the Daily Telegraph recently from the point of view of the employment agencies and the London County Council training schools. Stopping two girls leaving a North London labour exchange, where they had been seeking work, the investigator asked if they would like to become domestic servants. “Huh!” responded the elder of the two, tilting her nose, “I’ve never thought of it,” indicating that the - far beneath her attention. “I wouldn’t be a servant girl, not me,” quoth the other girl. “You can’t call your soul your own. I’ve a sister \\*ho was a servant, but she soon got sick of it, working all day and half the night for £35 a year, and had to think herself lucky if she got two nights off a week. I can get 255. a week in a factory, and I know when I’ve finished.” “Maybe, but you are out of work now,” she was reminded. “Well, I get the dole,” was the quick response, “and if I was a servant I couldn’t.” “But if you were a servant you need not be out of work.” “No, but supposing I took on a job as a servant, and didn’t like it, where should I be then? ‘Oh, no,’ they would say at the exchange, ‘there is no dole for servants!’ Not me.” The writer says: “This latter point of view is one that probably occurs to many girls who have become accustomed tothe spoon-fed age, when

workers need not worry over-much if they lose their jobs or tire of them, for they have the resources of the State behind them.”

Another explanation of the shortage came from an official of a big catering firm. / “We have a large number of applications from girls who have been in service for positions as waitresses. They want definite hours of work, and perhaps they like the waitresses’ neat uniforms. We give them a training, during which they receive some pay, and then we try to place them in restaurants near their homes.

“Some of these gii-ls say they object to having their time-off subjected to the whim of the mistress, who will change their evenings off to suit her own convenience. They want to be free.”

Moreover, the type of girl who does become a servant has changed greatly since the war. She demands higher wages, more off-duty time, and lighter duties, and is far more independent, because places are so easy to get, with or without references.

“I know of a girl who smokes cigarettes all day long, expects to have the morning paper first, and a wireless for her evening relaxation when she remains in,” said one informant. “But she is a capable servant, and her mistress is prepared to accept her independent spirit to retain her services.” There still remain certain sources of supply of useful girls for domestic service, but that supply is far short of the present-day demands. For instance, the Metropolitan Association for the Care of Young Servants last year placed 1941 girls in such situations, but that was 582 fewer than the number so placed in 1928. The Church Army Queen Mary’s Hostel at Victoria also finds situations in service for many girls and women.