If you want to take a figure at any given time and recognizing this lapse or this gap in time between the time a man makes a pledge and the time he is promised to fulfill that pledge, and this will usually average about a 6-month period-you will find that job hires are just about 50 percent of job pledges. In other words, the two figures aren't comparable at a given time. You would need to wait for approximately 6 months before all the job pledges are converted into job hires. Senator MONDALE. Do you have a figure on how many job slots are being subsidized now in Los Angeles County?

Mr. COOPER. I am sorry, I can't give you that figure.
Senator MONDALE. Can you give me a guess-a rough guess?

Mr. COOPER. I don't think I should because there are of course many programs that are not included in either the MDTA institutional program or the manpower administration series.

Your MA series job slots probably run as of now, I would suppose, I think 7,000.

Senator MONDALE. By the MA series, those are the jobs where a disadvantaged person is employed by an employer, and that employer receives an amount which is supposed to compensate him for the cost of taking the disadvantaged employee?

Mr. COOPER. The so-called extraordinary cost.

Senator MONDALE. And do you think roughly 7,000 are in that category?

Mr. COOPER. I would say something like that.

Senator MONDALE. Now, when you refer to 33,000 pledges, I gather you have a figure in mind which includes these, but many other areas as well. Would that include the people in skill centers?

Mr. COOPER. Yes; because many employers recruit from skill centers. Skill center people would find their way in to some of these 33,000 jobs. Yes.

Senator CRANSTON. These people who are employed not directly through some Government program, by what process it is determined that a given individual is so-called disadvantaged or hard-core unemployed?

Mr. COOPER. Well, in contract cases of course, each individual must be certified.

Senator CRANSTON. By who?

Mr. COOPER. By the State department of employment acting for the Department of Labor.

Senator CRANSTON. That is under a contract, but what about when there is no contract involved? You used these figures for both the contracted situation and the noncontractual situation.

Mr. COOPER. In our dealings with the employers who make pledges, outside of contracts and of course most of them are of this nature, we are talking to that employer about the same kind of person. Now, I suppose that there aren't the same kind of controls and certification. Here of course the employer is paying all the training expense himself. I think maybe, if I understand your question, I would go back to my 90-percent figure, and that is that 90 percent of the unemployed people in Los Angeles County are the kind of people who have got to have some prejob training before they can take any job.

Now the one question that could be raised is, are they all low enough in the income scale to meet the so-called poverty level requirement. I can't say about this, but I believe they try to get below that mark.

Senator MONDALE. There was a study in San Francisco which was critical of the JOBS program and I believe it said, among other things, that there was a practice there which went something like this. The employer would employ a person, hire him, and then would send the employee over to the State employment service to see if he qualified for support, and if he was, he applied for subsidy, if he weren't, since he had hired him, he would bring him to work without the subsidy. The implication being that many of the people being hired with the help-I don't want to use the word subsidy-you used a better term, what did you call it

Mr. COOPER. The financial assistance program?

Senator MONDALE (continuing). Yes; were people who would have been hired in any event. Could you respond to that?

Mr. COOPER. I can only give you my opinion that in this area, if there is any of that, it is certainly very small, because I certainly don't believe that the department of employment people would operate that way here in the first place; and secondly, I don't think there are many employers who we work with and know about that would do it this way.

In other words they would go at it straightforward. They would say either I am going to do it all myself and go out and do their hiring, or they are going to say I like the idea of the Government assistance program and tell me more about it, I would like to negotiate a contract and then I will do my hiring.

Senator MONDALE. Have you had instances, without being specific, where you think the program has been abused by any private employer in that way, any problems of that kind?

Mr. COOPER. No. None certainly that have come to my attention. Senator MONDALE. This morning, Supervisor Debs referred to the language problem which he thinks some adult Spanish-Americans have in this community. Is that a problem and if so how serious?

Mr. COOPER. It is a problem and it is a serious problem. Certainly it is true that there are some jobs in the community where a worker who speaks and understands no English can be employed satisfactorily because we have some Spanish-speaking employers and I suppose you added it all up it would be a substantial number of jobs that are available.

if

Senator MONDALE. Are there many people who are employable except for the language problem and, because of that, are unemployed?

Mr. COOPER. I would say if I understand you, that the language problem is simply an added problem and that most of the people who are unemployed because of their inability to work in English, are also unemployable for other reasons, but the language problem is a great one and our schools are trying to help them in this.

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Senator CRANSTON. What is the typical example of the comes in for employment through the NAB program in age and background and education and skill or the lack of it?

Mr. COOPER. Well, more recently to describe some of his lacks, he probably has reading ability at about the third-grade level; some less than that. Some are fully illiterate in English and in Spanish. He probably is about 30 years of age on the average and this average sort of figure is sometimes meaningless, certainly younger people and some older ones. He has some problems that I suppose you might describe as simply psychological being unaccustomed to industrial

work and he has to get over these. It takes a good bit of counseling and guidance to get him into a situation where he feels he is comfortable in an industrial situation.

On the other hand, he has an intense desire to succeed and if he gets a good start he usually makes good at it.

Senator CRANSTON. The average age of the young people in the Job Corps was of course much lower. What is happening in terms of opportunity for the young people who were in the Job Corps now since it is scaled down to the degree that it is? I gather not so many are being covered by the work you are talking about

Mr. COOPER. You've got some statutory age limits of course.
Senator CRANSTON. These are kids 18, 19, or 20.

Mr. COOPER. Well, I would say they've got a similar opportunity along with everybody else to find a job.

Senator CRANSTON. I gather given that age average you cited, that there would be less opportunity for these young people in this program than they had in the Job Corps?

Mr. COOPER. I am sorry if I gave you that impression because I didn't mean to. I was simply trying to look at the total range of all the people that come into employment from the disadvantaged areas and my 30 was simply selected as being a good medium between age 18 and age 55 but certainly the younger people have a good opportunity. Senator CRANSTON. In the JOBS program, what is the dropout rate as far as you understand it in the Los Angeles area of people that enter it in terms of finishing the training?

Mr. COOPER. Well, the best information we have is about the same as that as was reflected in the USC figure-you are talking about training now-excuse me.

The figures we have indicate that 68 percent complete training and in some cases more. It varies a little bit from community to community. In some of our skill centers, for example, it runs as high as 85 percent who actually complete their courses and in others it will drop down as low as 60 and the sort of average figures we have indicate that about 68 percent of them see it through.

Senator CRANSTON. I don't have any further questions. Thank you very much.

Mr. COOPER. Thank you.

Senator CRANSTON. Our next witness is Sigmund Arywitz, executive secretary, Los Angeles Central Labor Council.

You may proceed now as you wish.

STATEMENT OF SIGMUND ARYWITZ, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, LOS ANGELES CENTRAL LABOR COUNCIL

Mr. ARYWITZ. Thank you, Senator Cranston.

Since the Senate with the able leadership of you and Senator Mondale voted down the Senate amendments, I am in a position today to be very responsive to any questions on any subject.

Since you have been here this morning, I am sure that the committee has learned that in this city, the county of Los Angeles, there is every type of problem and every type of program to deal with the problem that is flourishing here.

The labor movement has been very concerned with the whole area of jobs, training, the whole manpower program because of the history

of the labor movement stems from poverty. We have learned through experience that the only real effective road away from poverty lies in well-paid employment-steady employment and continued employment. Naturally our concern is that every aspect of the manpower program may be related to a reasonally fair level of wages and that there be continuity in employment, that the training not be just something that ceases to be meaningful not too long after the training program is over.

We have been cooperating ever since the enactment of the MDTA programs. We have been working with every type of training program since then.

I would like to point out that we are presently disturbed over the paradox that at the same time that the Federal Government is actively engaged in seeking to increase the number of individuals that get into the job markets, that its economic policies unless they are reversed, are going to send unemployment figures soaring and that we are going to have the anomaly of more people being trained for fewer jobs than in existence.

Senator MONDALE. Will you yield there?

I think you have put your finger on what is the crux of the present manpower proposal of the administration. It is a policy restricted to training and, side by side with the policy to reduce employment, we will increase training and reduce jobs. Now we already have a pathetic syndrome in which a great share of those who are trained under the manpower programs today do not find employment.

Can you help us rationalize this inconsistency or do you think it is a basic failure

Mr. ARYWITZ. Senator, I think it is irrational. You can't rationalize it. I think there is a policy of putting dollars ahead of human beings and that in a zeal to bring out the economy, that the administration is doing exactly the opposite of what it professes to do in its manpower program, that we are going to face the problem that as we train people, that they are going to be unemployed at a higher level of skill than they were before their training. I think what we will be doing is perhaps whittling away at the hard core without changing their maybe increasing even the number of unemployed so you will have fewer unemployables but more people who are not working or whatever you call them. I don't think the answer lies in redistribution of jobs either. I think there is only one answer to what we are trying to do and that is continuing expansion of the economy. This is in the power of the Government to foster the answer that was most frequently given and that we can't afford to do it. I think the real answer is that we can't afford not to do it.

Senator MONDALE. In that context, would you conclude a policy of public service employment is needed to run parallel to an expanding economy?

Mr. ARYWITZ. I certainly think that we should. I think there is going to have to be a far greater allocation of funds to fill public service needs. Before I came on my present job I was the labor commissioner for the State of California and there are fewer people working in that division now than when I was there despite the fact that California has a much greater population.

There is an effort always to reduce the number of jobs in a public sector, but there is a need for increased services. I think that one of

the things we are going to have to do is develop the number of paraprofessions and provide assistance, services to people who are professionally engaged in the public sector. I think that one of the things we will have to do and I know you have heard this before, is be much more realistic in our standards of eligibility because many people who would be wholly capable of working in public service jobs, are ruled out because of the requisites, the requirements in order to apply for the job.

I think that one of our shortcomings now is that recruitment sort of just wanders around, that there is a willingness to receive applications, but not enough active seeking out of people. There must be a step up of recruitment. Then I think there is a need for expansion of services.

I believe in order to do all of this there is going to have to be a greater community involvement that public service is not just a business of public body concerned, but it is the business of the community itself and the community must be called upon to participate and insist in developing the programs in seeking out the people.

Now there are a great many things that can be done in this area. We know the shortcomings of our educational services; we know the limitations of our school budgets. I think the Federal Government can provide far more assistance than it is already doing. In the area of health and child care services there is certainly a great need. We find that there is a tremendous need in meeting emergency needs in the ghetto. We find that most agencies providing services in the ghetto are open from 9 to 5. Most emergencies take place between 5 at night and 9 in the morning. There are not enough people available in public service to provide some kind of answers to these emergencies as they come up. So there is a great deal that can be done, but I think it would be a tragic error if we try to solve the expansion of job opportunities in the public sector as a cheaper way to provide public service, to say that it doesn't cost as much as using civil service personnel, because if we go on that basis, then we are establishing second-class citizens; we are creating new kinds of problems and we aren't going to answer any of these problems unless the people who are trained and the people who are placed in jobs are able to make a good living doing it.

Now in the area of the private sector, I don't want to argue as to whether it is better to say that there is Government assistance or their subsidies. It seems that it is Government assistance if you really don't. need the money, and subsidy if you do. But I argue very much with the thesis that Government assistance programs may be used by employers to turn an extra dollar at the expense of the Government and the trainees and the regular work force.

I would be very much opposed to anything that would foster a poverty industry or a trainee industry that has as its objective, the profits or the enrichment of individuals engaged rather than the end product of job development and training and fill the jobs.

We feel there is a great deal more care that must be taken to guard against abuses. For instance, there is always danger of conflict of interest where the same people who are developing the job and training programs, sell supported services. I think that one way to avoid this is to have more use of the public sector in the supported services. I don't think the public schools are involved enough or have enough opportunity to come into this. I don't like to see a new business of milking the training programs flourish.