TABLE 2.-Estimates of nonagricultural employment in Pacific Northwest by major industry division, September 1939 and by month January 1943-December 1946

1 Estimates include all full- and part-time wage and salary workers in nonagricultural establishments (except government) who worked or received pay during the pay period ending nearest the 15th of the month. Proprietors, self-employed persons, domestic servants, and personnel of the armed forces are excluded. See table 1, footnote 2.

* See table 1, footnote 3.

From the low point in November 1945, activity increased again, so that by December 1946, about 70,000 nonagricultural workers had been taken on, which brought the total to about 840,000. Much of this expansion was in such industries as trade, which accounted for a third of the gain, and in services, which took on about a fifth of the new workers. These industries had been understaffed during the war.

Trends in Major Industry Divisions

MANUFACTURING

The Northwest had three things that the Nation needed to meet the needs of war-protected rivers and harbors suitable for building ships on a year-round basis, the nucleus of a shipbuilding industry with past experience in ship construction, and a well-established lumber industry to provide construction materials for ways and for ships. With these resources available, manufacturing employment increased much more rapidly in the Northwest between September 1939 and September 1943 than in the Nation as a whole. In September 1943, the peak manufacturing employment for the region500,400-represented an increase of 160 percent from 1939, while the Nation's maximum employment in November of the same year represented a gain of 77 percent over the prewar period (table 3). With some variation, this relatively high position was maintained throughout the war period.

In the 3-month interval immediately following VJ-day, however, the situation was quite different; by November 1945, almost 150,000 workers had been dropped from the factory pay-rolls in Washington and Oregon, and employment levels were only 40 percent above 1939. The December 1946 employment-279,400-was about 46 percent above the prewar level, as compared with an increase in factory employment for the Nation as a whole of over 55 percent. The region and the Nation each gained about 45 percent in manufacturing employment between 1939 and 1946, however, if seasonal factors are disregarded. As of the end of 1946, the trend of employment in the Nation appears to be definitely upward, but in the Pacific Northwest seasonal factors have so strongly influenced the employment trend in the last few months that it is very difficult to appraise the outlook.

Transportation equipment.-The growth and decline of the transportation-equipment industry dominated industrial employment and even nonagricultural employment as a whole in the Northwest for the war and the immediate postwar periods. Only 7,000 workers were employed in the shipbuilding and aircraft industries in 1939, but by July 1943, almost 249,000 were employed. This high level was maintained, with slight variations, throughout 1943; in 1944, employment began to decline, and by August 1945, only 176,600 were employed. In the 3-month interval after the war ended, two

Estimates for the transportation equipment group do not include Government-operated navy yards.

men were laid off for every man retained. Not until December 1946 were increases in aircraft workers of sufficient magnitude to cause a slight upturn in the group employment. However, the necessity of absorbing displaced shipbuilding-aircraft workers forms the key peacetime problem. To solve this the Northwest must look to its large peacetime manufacturing industries and to other components of the economic life of the region.5

TABLE 3.-Manufacturing employment1 in Pacific Northwest, 1939 annual average; key months, 1943-44; by month, August 1945-December 1946

1 Estimates include all full- and part-time wage and salary workers who worked or received pay during the pay period ending nearest the 15th of the month. Proprietors, self-employed persons, domestic servants, and personnel of the armed forces are excluded.

See table 1, footnote 2.

See article on Prospective Labor Supply on the West Coast, p. 563; also Pacific Northwest Economic

Outlook, 1947, p. 636.

Lumber and timber basic products.-Workers in lumber and logging activities constitute the largest peacetime manufacturing-employment group in the Northwest-over a third of manufacturing employment. About 108,000 workers were on the pay rolls in December 1946, representing an increase of 19 percent from 1939, but a decrease from the highest employment of the war period. With the exception of the last quarter of 1945, when the industry was involved in labormanagement disputes, the group has been one of the more stable sources of work in the region.

Not only is this industry an important source of employment in this region, but in December 1946, workers in Washington and Oregon constituted over 15 percent of the national employment in lumber. However, because of its seasonal characteristics, even relatively large postwar expansion in this industry would do little to solve the aircraft and shipbuilding displacement problem.

Food products.-Food-processing workers formed the only other large manufacturing group in the peacetime industrial economy of the Northwest, accounting for about 17 percent of factory employment. The principal food industries are fruit, vegetable, and fish canning, and flour milling. Employment in canning is particularly subject to extreme seasonal peaks which occur in September and October. Variations in employment in 1946 ranged from 36,300 workers in April to 65,100 in September. Average employment in 1946 was 47,400, a 44-percent increase over the 1939 average of 32,900.

Other industries.-Six other small but relatively stable industries in the Northwest furnished employment to an additional 66,000 factory workers in 1946. The largest of these was the pulp and paper products group, employing about 16,300, an increase of 2,600 workers over 1939. Furniture factories employed about 13,000 persons, an increase of 3,500 from the prewar period. A number of other industries such as chemical products, machinery (except electrical), printing, and iron and steel-employed on the average from 7,000 to 11,000 people. Nonferrous-metals products employed an average of about 6,000 workers in 1946, but the opening of several new aluminum plants in the region resulted in about 3,800 additional jobs in the industry in the last half of 1946.

These smaller manufacturing industries, which are all employing more people than in 1939, accounted for about a fourth of factory employment in the Northwest in 1946. They are not sufficiently large, however, to absorb any appreciable part of the workers formerly engaged in the transportation-equipment industries or of those who will be seasonally unemployed. Employment possibilities in other lines offer more opportunities.