TABLE 77.-Number of firms and number of workers by sex and industry in New Jersey, 1954

Source: New Jersey wage and hour survey, 1954, B-1.

Similar dispersions variety existed in regard to the number of full-time and part-time employees. In retailing as a whole a little over 86 percent of the men and almost 80 percent of the women were full-time employees. (See table 78.) In limited-price variety stores one-half of all men employees were part time and almost 38 percent of the women were part time. In gas stations 50 percent of all the women and almost 30 percent of all men were part-time employees. These were the highest percentages of part-time employees.

TABLE 78.-Percent distribution of full-time and part-time workers by sex and industry in New Jersey, 1954

29

Median hourly earnings in June 1954 amounted to $1.09 for women and $1.42 for men.2 (See table 79.) One and nine-tenths percent of the men earned less than 75 cents an hour and 6.3 percent of the women earned less than that amount. Almost 10 percent of the men and almost 35 percent of the women earned less than $1 an hour.

29 All earnings are gross earnings.

TABLE 79.-Hourly earnings-Retail trade, New Jersey, 1954-percent distribution

These percentages varied greatly in different branches of retailing. (See table 80.)

TABLE 80.-Percent distribution of hourly earnings of men in retail trade, New

Jersey, 1954

The relative number of men workers earning less than 75 cents au hour was less than 3 percent for all branches of retailing listed in table 80 with exception of drugstores: a little over 10 percent of men employees in drugstores earned less than 75 cents an hour. There were, however, considerably higher relative numbers earning below $1 an hour: In furniture stores, gas stations, and auto and accessories around 5 percent of the men employees earned less than $1. In food stores there were 13 percent, in general merchandise stores a little over 15 percent, and in drugstores almost 35 percent below $1 hourly earnings.

As was to be expected these percentages are higher for women employees. (See table 81.)

TABLE 81.-Percent distribution of hourly earnings of women in retail trade in New Jersey, 1954

1 Number too small to justify computation of median and percent distribution, so actual numbers shown. Source: New Jersey Wage and Hour Survey, 1954, B-7.

A little over 3 percent earned less than 75 cents an hour in food stores and about 7 percent earned less than 75 cents in general merchandise stores. Over one-fifth of the women employees in drugstores earned less than 75 cents an hour. In all 3 industries just listed the corresponding figures pass the 30 percent mark: 32 percent of the women employees in food stores, almost 42 percent in general merchandise, and over 50 percent in drugstores earned less than $1 an hour. In furniture stores 17 percent of the women employees earned less than that amount.

In retailing as a whole the earnings of the sales personnel was somewhat lower than average earnings for all occupations. In June 1954, 7.3 percent of the male adult sales workers earned less than $1 an hour as compared to 6 percent for all occupations in the retail trade.

At the same time 48.8 percent of the female sales workers earned less than $1 as compared to 34.7 percent for all occupations in retailing. 30

The New Jersey survey gives some interesting data on earnings by size of establishment. (See table 82.)

TABLE 82.-Percent distribution of hourly earnings by size of establishment and sex, New Jersey, 1954

Source: New Jersey Wage and Hour Survey, 1954, B-31.

If we take the percentage of workers earning less than 75 cents an hour we find this percentage to increase as we move from establishments with less than 5 employees (0.3 percent for male and 1.1 percent for female workers) to establishments with 5 or more but less than 25 employees (1.1 percent for male and 2.5 percent for female workers). The relative number of employees earning less than 75 cents then decreases as we move to larger establishments (for establishments with 25 or more but less than 50 employees, the percentages are 0.4 percent for men and 1.6 percent for women). In establishments with 50 employees and more we find only 0.1 percent of the men and 0.5 percent of the women earning less than 75 cents an hour.

The pattern changes, however, if we consider the relative number of employees earning less than $1 an hour. The percentages still increase considerably as we move from establishments with less than 51 employees (1.5 percent for men and 4.4 percent for women) to establishments with 5 or more but less than 25 employees (5.2 percent for men and 13.6 percent for women). Again, these percentages decline for establishments with 25 or more but less than 50 employees (1.4) for men and 5.3 percent for women). However the relative number of women employees earning less than $1 an hour increases considerably for establishments with 50 or more employees: 10.7 percent of women in these large establishments earned less than $1 as compared with 5.3 percent for the preceding category. For men, however, the percentage earning less than $1 is again slightly less than for the preceding size category (1.3 percent for stores with 50 or more employees as compared to 1.4 percent for stores with 25 or more but less than 50 employees).

30 See op. cit., tables F-1 and F-3.