In addition, we must be willing to consider shortening the workweek. Please understand me. I am not advocating that this be done now.

A shorter workweek, undertaken suddenly, could do a great deal more harm than good, and so we must proceed slowly and with caution. If we were to cut the workweek now, without cutting take-home pay and without raising productivity, we would add new labor costs to American products. On the other hand, I am sure working hours will eventually be reduced. In 1850, the average workweek in nonagricultural industries was nearly 66 hours; by 1900, 56 hours; by 1950, nearly 39 hours. And there it has hovered for a decade, declining less than 1 hour, despite the fact that it had dropped nearly 3 hours on the average, in each preceding decade for more than 100 years.

Unemployment is a complex and difficult problem. If any of us were faced with a personal problem of such serious proportions, I suspect we would all approach it in about the same way. First, we would try to define our problem. Then we would devise the solution we thought most likely to succeed, and try it for a reasonable period of time. If it did not work, we would turn to another solution and try that. We would keep repeating this process until we found an answer that worked. That is the kind of approach I think we must take.

We may have to try treatments we have never tried before. Had we concluded after World War II that the way to help save Europe was to let events run their course, we might today be alone in a Communist world. Instead, we responded to a new situation with a new measure. Some people said the Marshall plan would not work. But as a nation we had the good sense to know that it was more dangerous to tolerate the sickness than to try some new and unusual form of treatment.

This is like Americans-when ordinary methods fall short, we invent new measures, new programs, and new approaches.

If present measures do not give us the results we need in depressed areas, then we should look at other approaches. Perhaps we cannot borrow directly from Puerto Rico or Europe, but we can consider temporary incentives of our own such as:

(1) State and local tax concessions to attract new businesses to depressed areas.

(2) Where necessary, Federal assistance to replace revenue losses resulting from such tax concessions.

(3) A special program of accelerated depreciation allowable under Federal income taxes on new plant and equipment investments in depressed areas.

(4) And ultimately, direct Government subsidies for development and renewal programs in depressed areas.

If present measures do not solve the serious hard core unemployment problems which exist throughout the country, then, as I mentioned earlier, we should consider such other measures as:

Relocation allowances for individuals:

Earlier social security retirements benefits:

Strengthened educational programs for the potential school dropout: and Possibly, a shorter workweek.

In a sense, our success may stem as much from what we stop doing, as what we do.

Let's stop deferring adjustments we shall have to make in the hope that the need for them will disappear. The longer we put them off, the more they accumulate and the tougher they are to deal with.

Let's stop pretending that this business of adjustment can be left solely to the individual or the normal course of events. Hardship is inevitable in the process of change. We must learn to share it as we now share the benefits.

Let's stop thinking that we may be able to solve these problems with one grand solution that will take care of them forever. They are going to be with us forever in one form or another as technological change takes place, and what we must do is step up to each of them, find an answer, and move on to another.

And let's conclude the debate as to whether we have a problem. We have. The time has come to find workable solutions.

If we do this, it will solidify us as a people and help insure our leadership in the world. If we fail, we may permanently alienate millions of citizens and possibly destroy our system while trying to defend some of its ideological details.

It has often been observed that America cannot hope to survive as an island of plenty in a sea of international poverty. It must be even more true that a majority of Americans cannot survive in unworried affluence while a minority are doomed to lives of idleness and poverty.

[Statement before the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower, Oct. 3, 1963] SOME MYTHS ABOUT AUTOMATION

(By John I. Snyder, Jr., chairman and president, U.S. Industries, Inc.)

My name is John Snyder and I am chairman and president of U.S. Industries, Inc. I am also one of the founders of the American Foundation on Automation and Employment. Cofounder and cochairman is my good friend, Albert J. Hayes, international president of the International Association of Machinists.

I want to express my appreciation to the committee for giving me this opportunity to express my views on the implications of automation. The opportunity is welcome for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that the corporation I represent has been, I believe, a pioneer in that broad field of present day technology that is sometimes loosely referred to as automation. My company designs and produces automation machinery; therefore, those of us in the management of the company feel a deep sense of responsibility toward those people whom such machines are adversely affecting. It is in the area of automation's effects on human beings that our foundation is focusing its primary attention in the form of research and study programs. Our efforts are dramatically limited, however, when we view with care the growing dimensions of our national manpower problem. Neither our company nor the other automation machinery manufacturers possess the kind of resources that enable us to bear the full burden, to assume the full responsibility for all those people affected in one way or another by our machines. This simply is not the kind of responsibility that can be delegated to any one company or even

group of companies. It is too large, too all-encompassing, too serious a responsibility not to be everyone's.

Apart from the research and study efforts which I have mentioned, our major task at the foundation is to tell the truth about automation-and this is not an easy task. Too many people are willing to accept too many myths about what is going on around us in our factories and offices. Too few people accept the very few truthful facts which are being turned up by real experience and intelligent study. Because I wholeheartedly believe this to be the case, I have taken on the assignment of telling the truth-or at least what I consider the truth-about both the short- and long-range effects of automation and technological change.

Specifically, in regard to my own area of specialization, the manufacture and utilization of automated equipment, I can assure you that the problems are vast and complex in the area of conflict between the efficiences of the machines and the nature of human needs. From a technological point of view automation is working; but the same thing cannot be said so confidently from the human point of view. The technologists have done and are doing their job. They have developed and are developing equipment that works miracles. But, as is too often the case in this age of the widening gap between scientific progress and man's ability to cope with it, we have failed to keep pace.

Much of this failure is due, I think, to the existence of a number of myths about automation, which, because they are so widely accepted, have had a deep tranquilizing effect on many of those who otherwise might make effective contributions toward solutions to the human problems created by automation. The most seductive of these myths is the claim that, for a number of reasons, automation is not going to eliminate many jobs. Last week, before a Senate Labor Subcommittee, a top productivity expert for the Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that the Department felt that rising productivity-another way of describing automation-would eliminate 200,000 jobs a year— or 4,000 jobs a week. Personally, I think this is a gross underestimate of the real situation and that automation is a major factor in eliminating jobs in the United States at the rate of more than 40,000 a week, as previous estimates have put it. We must also keep in mind that automation is not only displacing people directly, but also indirectly through what are called silent firings in reference to workers who would have been hired for jobs eliminated by automation.

A second myth is that automation will create jobs for workers not only in running the machines, but in maintaing and building them. The hard truth here is that modern automated equipment requires very little maintenance. If it did not, it would not pay to operate it: and if the equivalent number of workers replaced by automation were required to build the machines and systems, there would be no point in automating.

A third myth that needs to be laid to rest is the belief that those who lose their jobs to automation can be retrained and put into other jobs requiring higher skills and paying more money. As studies have shown, automation is more likely to reduce rather than increase the demands for skills and aptitudes and, besides, many workers are just not retrainable, due to their levels of intelligence, education, and age. Still another myth is that workers replaced by automation in one

part of the country can find jobs in other areas. The truth is that the workers thrown out of jobs are usually just those who are least able to move. They are the lower paid, the older, the unskilled. Either they cannot afford to move from an economic standpoint or they are psychologically incapable of beginning a new life in a strange

area.

I have mentioned these myths or misconceptions because I feel strongly that they are unfortunately serving as easy palliatives for those who either cannot or will not come forward and grapple with the human problems caused by automation. It is much easier to look for proof that these problems do not exist than to admit their existence and move ahead toward a solution.

This general failure to face these problems, the attempt in many places to avoid them, to my way of thinking, represents a national moral weakness in itself; and I further believe that it can be an indication of a common failure to judge and understand the severe nature and extent of the thrust of this technological revolution. In the coming months and years, if we are to survive as a nation, we will need new sociological and economic ideas to solve the problems we face in this area. All of us, whether our desks are in the Congress, or in business offices, or at union headquarters, must work together as never before-to come up with such new ideas. We have a moral obligation to make a substantial contribution toward solving the problems that accompany rapid technological change. If we fail, we are handing our children an invitation to disaster-for failure to perceive the dimensions and the gravity of the human problems we are facing represents a moral breakdown of the gravest dimensions.

On the other hand, by meeting and overcoming the challenges that confront us-acting in the common good and by conquering ourselves as we have conquered the natural forces around us, we can gain the rich rewards of our scientific ingenuity for ourselves and for generations of Americans yet to come.

[Statement before the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower, Sept. 20, 1963] EMPLOYMENT IMPLICATIONS OF AUTOMATION

(By John Diebold, president, The Diebold Group, Inc.)

Mr. Chairman, this subcommittee has requested my views with respect to the employment implications of automation and other technological changes as well as appropriate methods of adjustment to such changes. I am happy to be here to discuss with you these matters, so vital to the future of our country and its welfare.

There are three basic propositions-often obscured in public debate-which should determine the parameters of our discussion this morning and from which various conclusions follow:

1. In order for the United States to maintain its position of world leadership and to avoid significant unemployment which would result from the loss of such leadership this country needs rapid and widespread application of the most advanced technology.

2. Government and industry should encourage the development and application of such advanced technology and the creation of an environment conducive to technological change..

3. An essential element of such an environment is the avoiding or cushioning of unemployment resulting from the application of advanced technology.

May I briefly develop these three basic propositions:

First. Only the application of the most advanced technology within the United States will assure our proper role and prestige internationally, as well as the strength and the leadership of the free world itself. This is most clearly recognized with respect to our defense activities and military posture. In this domain, no question is raised, no money is stinted, and no qualms are felt with respect to the ned and propriety for the application of the most advanced techniques and technology.

The need for such application is no less necessary in civilian activities agricultural, industrial, and commercial. Without such application, our role in international trade and investment will deteriorate and significant unemployment will directly result-as other exporting nations with most modern productive facilities and plant, with lower labor costs and with national resource advantages, squeeze and erode our oversea export and investment position.

Without the application of modern technology, U.S. industry and agriculture will also be unable to protect, let alone extend, its present domestic position against the pressures of foreign imports and foreign investment, with consequent significant unemployment.

Finally, without the application of modern technology, the achievement of full employment, the elimination of significant poverty in the United States, as well as the raising of our standard of living, would be impossible in the foreseeable future. Only the introduction of such technology can assure the marriage of national well-being with the extension of democratic freedoms in the United States, with its attendant hope to peoples everywhere.

Second. Employment and manpower utilization are almost always viewed as an entity separate from the environment in which it operates. Almost never is the U.S. labor force and the training of our manpower resources considered as part of an environment in which Government actively seeks to foster technological change.

Nevertheless, only such an environment of widespread technological change fostered and nurtured by Government-can assure the most effective utilization of our manpower resources.

Third. There is widespread agreement that Government and industry have responsibility to cushion the dislocations resulting from the application of advanced technology; that Government particularly must take the necessary steps to assure that the benefits of technological change do not become burdens of widespread unemployment. In considering how to fulfill this responsibility, important areas remain to be clarified, in order not only to develop a consistent policy but also to assure the realization of the objective itself:

1. There is no clarity with respect to the fact that the causes of unemployment as well as the ingredients of full employment-are multiform. Thus, automation is only one important expression of technological change; technological change (including automation) is only one of the major causes of unemployment. Other major causes, as recognized by Congress itself in the enactment of the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962, are foreign competition,