agricultural employment by about 350,000. Revised estimates of labor force, employment, and unemployment are shown in the accompanying table. For more detail, see United States Bureau of the Census, Monthly Report on the Labor Force (MRLF-No. 54), December 16, 1946.

Revised estimates of total labor force in the United States, classified by employment status and sex, July 1945 to November 1945

[Source: U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census]

1 Total labor force consists of the civilian labor force and the armed forces. All data exclude persons in institutions. Estimates of the armed forces during the Census week are projected from data on net strength as of the first of the month.

Summary of Employment Reports for November 1946 GAINS during November 1946 raised employment in nonagricultural establishments to practically the wartime peak of December 1943. Preliminary estimates indicate that seasonal increases for trade in December will raise the total above the high point of the war years.

The gain of 287,000 employees between October and November primarily reflected increases of more than 200,000 each in manufacturing and trade. The only declines were in contract construction (176,000) and in government (41,000).

Manufacturing employment was 14,970,000 in November, about 21⁄2 million above the reconversion low in February 1946. Of the 209,000 added to factory pay rolls in November, 194,000 were production workers.

Industrial and Business Employment

By far the largest single gain in production-worker employment was in the food group, which normally experiences a seasonal decline at this time. The increase of 49,000 production workers in food manufacturing was concentrated in the slaughtering and meat-packing plants which expanded production schedules after the ending of price controls.

Other increases of more than 10,000 production workers each, between October and November, were reported by the iron and steel, nonelectrical machinery, textiles, and electrical machinery groups. Lesser increases were reported by all but two of the remaining groups with only apparel showing any decline.

Although employment in the automobile industry was only 4,000 above the October level, the number of production workers was 223,000 above a year ago. This was the largest gain over the year for a simple industry, with iron and steel and nonelectrical machinery following close behind.

TABLE 1.—Estimated number of employees in nonagricultural establishments, by industry division

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

Estimates for manufacturing have been adjusted to levels indicated by final 1944 data made available by the Bureau of Employment Security of the Federal Security Agency and are comparable with the production-worker estimates shown in table 2.

TABLE 2.-Estimated number of production workers and indexes of production-worker employment in manufacturing industries, by major industry group 1

1

The estimates and indexes presented in this table have been adjusted to levels indicated by final 1944 data made available by the Bureau of Employment Security of the Federal Security Agency.

Public Employment

From the end of hostilities to November 1, 1946, more than 1.6 million persons have left the pay roll of Federal war agencies-half a million outside the country and 1.1 million within the continental area. Although most of this numerical decline occurred in the War and Navy Departments, a gradual climb on the part of the War Assets Administration (to a total of 57,000 on November 1) masked a drop of almost three-fifths in the employment of the other war agencies. The drop reflects the abolition of 14 agencies, including the Office of Censorship, Office of War Information, and War Manpower Commission, etc., as well as the gradual dismantling of some of the others.

Moving in the opposite direction, the Veterans Administration and Post Office Department led the agencies in the peacetime group with a gain of 200,000 during the same postwar period, while others in this group, such as the State and Labor Departments, which are absorbing the dwindling functions of abolished war agencies, had a net addition of 40,000 workers.

In spite of these opposing trends in the war and the peacetime agencies since VJ-day, war agencies had over half the 2,438,000 total Federal employment on November 1, 1946. This figure was 34,000 lower than on October 1, but it does not represent a stabilized postwar level, further retrenchment being required on the part of both war and peacetime agencies by congressional action taken last June and by continued Budget Bureau vigilance over employment ceilings.

In the postwar period under discussion, two women were dropped from full-time Federal positions within continental United States for every man dropped; until on November 1, 1946, women occupied only 29 percent or substantially less than a third of such positions, as compared with 40 percent at the war's end.

Within the Washington, D. C., area, the men-women changes have been even more dramatic-one man has actually been added to the pay roll for every three women taken off. This has reduced the proportion of women in Washington from 61 percent at the war's end to 48 percent on November 1, 1946.

Unfortunately it is not known how many of the women leaving the Government service have left voluntarily.

The Federal pay rolls shown here consist, for the most part, of two biweekly pay rolls, or pay for 4 weeks. Three biweekly pay periods ended in November 1946, however, and as a result the pay rolls are abnormally high and cannot be compared with the pay rolls for other months. At present a method of adjusting Federal pay rolls to a calendar month basis is being worked out and the adjusted figures

for the period July 1945 to date will be presented in an early issue of the Monthly Labor Review.

Source of data. Data for the Federal executive service are reported through the Civil Service Commission, whereas data for the legislative and judicial services and Government corporations are reported to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment on Federal forceaccount construction is included in both the executive branch (tables 3 and 4) and in construction employment (table 2 in the section, Construction).

Military personnel and pay figures are reported monthly to the Bureau of Labor Statistics but are published here only quarterly. Mimeographed tables giving civilian employment and military personnel and pay, monthly, 1939 to date, and civilian pay rolls, monthly, 1943 to date, are available upon request.

TABLE 3.-Employment and pay rolls for regular Federal services and for Government corporations in selected months

1 Includes employees on force-account construction. Beginning July 1945, data include clerks at thirdclass post offices who were previously working on a contract basis. Data exclude substitute rural mail carriers.

2 Data are for employees of the Panama Railroad Company, the Federal Reserve banks, and banks of the Farm Credit Administration. Data for other Government corporations are included under the executive service.

Data are for all pay periods ending within the calendar month. Beginning July 1945, this ordinarily represents pay for 4 weeks but in November 1946 it represents pay for 6 weeks for most employees.