Annual Message to the Congress: The President's Manpower Report.

To the Congress of the United States:

In January 1966, fourteen young men-high school dropouts--enrolled in a Baltimore Neighborhood Youth Corps program. Eight months later, most of them had returned to school, helped by part-time work and wages received through job training.

Last February in the same city, 29 women--all on the relief rolls--graduated from a federally-sponsored course to train nurses' aides. Today they are off welfare, working in hospitals. As they help themselves and their families, they are helping the nation meet its critical shortage of health workers.

In Chicago last summer, six employment offices were set up for teenagers under the Manpower Development and Training Act--and run by the young people themselves. Through these centers, 750 young men and women got jobs. What might have been empty summers became, for them, a satisfying, productive time.

These examples of progress are the result of programs begun only a few years ago-programs which reflect the nation's commitment to a positive manpower policy.

By bringing new skills to thousands of Americans, these programs are fueling the ambitions and fulfilling the hopes of many who might otherwise have been condemned to idleness--not by choice but by lack of opportunity.

This Manpower Report to the Congress, submitted under the Manpower Development and Training Act, surveys the progress we have made in the last year. It also points up the troubling and persistent problems of unemployment in a prosperous economy-and the steps we must take to overcome those problems.

1966--A YEAR OF PROGRESS

An effective manpower policy depends on a healthy economy. In 1966, this Nation's unemployment rate dropped below 4 percent--reaching a 13-year low. Seventy-four million people were working, nearly two million more than when the year began.

The total production of goods and services in America increased to an historic $740 billion--$58 billion more than in 1965. On the whole, jobs were paying better than ever, and were more regular and secure than they had been in many years. More than 98 percent of men in the labor force with families to support were at work. The after-tax income of American families increased, after allowing for price increases, by 3.5 percent.

This economic progress did not occur by chance. It was the achievement of business and labor. It was the result of gradually improving education. Much of it also came from careful efforts by Government to encourage and sustain economic growth--and to carry out humane and positive manpower programs.

Those efforts--even the newest of them-have been remarkably fruitful. Through the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the Higher Education Act of 1965, the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962, strengthened by the 1965 and 1966 amendments, and through other progressive measures, we have taken vital steps to assure opportunity to all our citizens.

By the end of last year, for example, under the Manpower Development and Training Act programs:

--About 600,000 unemployed and underemployed workers had been enrolled in training;

--Three out of four trainees who completed their classroom work had gone on to regular employment;

--Nearly nine out of ten citizens who had completed on-the-job training were gainfully employed;

--Thousands of citizens most in need of help--Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans and other disadvantaged young Americans--had received training;

--Workers by the thousands were being trained to relieve acute manpower shortages in the health fields and in a variety of other occupations.

By late 1966, under the Economic Opportunity Act:

--More than 800,000 young people had received a new start through the Neighborhood Youth Corps.

--Thousands of poor boys and girls, many who were at less than a fourth-grade literacy level, had gotten training and jobs through the Job Corps.

--200,000 young men and women, who might have been forced to leave college because of financial difficulties, had continued their education through the College Work Study Program.

--138,000 needy family breadwinners were given new skills through the Work Experience and Training Program. These programs are helping more than a million Americans each year to gain the knowledge and skills needed for steady productive employment.

THE PARADOX OF PROSPERITY

Our manpower programs have accomplished much. They must be continued-and their momentum increased. For the year 1966 reminded us that expansion of the economy will not, by itself, eliminate all unemployment and underemployment.

Last year the over-all unemployment rate dropped to 3.8 percent and the rate for married men to below 2 percent, an impressively low figure. But we have no reason to be complacent. The tragedy of joblessness is not only in the amount of unemployment but in the kind of unemployment.

--Over twelve percent of our young people aged 16 to 19 were still looking for jobs at the year's end.

--Among Negroes and other minority groups, the unemployment rate was almost double the over-all rate.

--In slums and depressed rural areas, joblessness ran close to ten percent. And one out of every three people in those areas who are or ought to be working today faces some severe employment problem.

Much of this unemployment occurred not because jobs were unavailable, but because people were unable to fill jobs or, for various reasons, unwilling to fill them.

--Often the job is in one place--but the worker in another.

--Or the job calls for a special skill-a skill the unemployed person does not have.

--The employer insists on a high school diploma--but the job seeker quit school without this qualification.

--An employer demands a "clean record"--but the applicant has a record marred by a juvenile arrest.

--A job offers one day's work a week-but the worker needs five days' pay to support his family.

All these problems have long been with us. In the past, however, they were often obscured by general unemployment: when thousands of skilled experienced workers were searching for work, scant attention was paid to the jobless high school drop-out.

Today, illuminated by prosperity, these problems stand out more dearly.

At the end of 1966, about 2.9 million workers were unemployed. But it is estimated that during the course of the year, about 10.5 million workers suffered some unemployment.

About three-quarters of the 10.5 million workers were only temporarily out of jobs-and soon found work. The young worker just entering the labor force belongs to this group; the bank teller who has left his job to seek a better one; the lathe operator who has been laid off while adjustments are made in the production schedule.

We cannot eliminate all temporary unemployment. In a free and mobile society, people must be able to change jobs and get better ones; workers must be able to leave and enter the labor force at will; and the rate of production of particular firms and industries must be free to respond to market forces.

We must seek, however, to minimize the hardships of temporary unemployment:

--By making it unnecessary for young men and women to spend long weeks job hunting after they leave school;

--By providing greater year-round opportunities to seasonal workers;

--By improving job referral services to bring jobs and workers closer together.

Our manpower programs seek to do just those things--and to reduce the waste and frustration that result from even short spells of unemployment.

But our manpower programs must do more. They must reach the workers who are unemployed for long periods and those who are frequently out of work.

Preliminary estimates from our labor force survey show that during 1966 there were 2.5 million American workers who were jobless for 15 weeks or more during the year. Of those, about 700,000 were out of work during more than half of the year. Another 1/2 to 1 million potential workers had abandoned the search for a job, at least temporarily, and were not even counted as unemployed. Still another 500,000 unemployed were probably missed by the labor force survey. Others were employed at part-time jobs when they needed full-time work.

Some of these workers should not be in the labor force at all, including those too old or too ill to hold steady jobs. These people can be helped by improvements in our health, public assistance and social security programs.

Others in this group have the skill and experience to find and hold good jobs. They can be helped by improvements in our employment services, and by actions to reduce seasonal unemployment.

But there are many who need special manpower services before they can become fully adequate workers and earners. Precise measurement of the magnitude of the task ahead is difficult indeed, impossible. But we can estimate that there are roughly two million potential workers who can be helped and are willing to help themselves.

These are the dropouts--young men and women who have left school with inadequate education and without skills. Lacking experience, they cannot find work; lacking work, they can never get experience.

They are older workers whose obsolete skills are useless in today's job market.

They are Negroes, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and others barred from jobs by other people's prejudice.

They are the illiterate, the migrants, the mentally and physically handicapped, the young men rejected as unfit for military service.

This is the effort that has to be made--to reduce unemployment to the point where all that remains is the result of inevitable movements within the work force, irreducible seasonal factors, and a small number of people whose disadvantages or circumstances preclude their satisfactory employment.

The remaining problem is formidable and its solution will take time. But it is of manageable proportions.

Never before have we had so great an opportunity--or so urgent an obligation-to bring training and skills to people willing to help themselves.

These Americans need hope, not handouts. They want--and deserve--work and training, not welfare.

NEW DIRECTIONS IN MANPOWER POLICY

If we are to proceed in practical ways to assist the unemployed, we must pursue five new directions in manpower policy.

1. We Must Bridge the Gap Between Education and Work.

Few nations--perhaps none--can match the achievements of our educational system. None equals the record of our economy. Yet our youth unemployment rate is the highest of any modern nation.

We pay too little attention to the two out of three young people who do not go to college and the many others who do not finish college. As citizens and supporters of public education, we should be as concerned about assisting them in their transition from school to job as we are about preparing others for college.

Too many young men and women face long and bitter months of job hunting or marginal work after leaving school. Our society has not yet established satisfactory ways to bridge the gap between school and work. If we fail to deal energetically with this problem, thousands of young people will continue to lapse into years of intermittent, unrewarding and menial labor.

Our interest in a young person should not stop when he finishes--or drops out of-school. Our concern should become even greater then. It should extend to the point at which every young person becomes self-sufficient. Any other view would not only lack humanity--it would be false economy.

Other nations have developed broad industry training and internship programs, offering education and experience to young people entering a trade or profession. Still others have established close ties between educational institutions and employment agencies at all levels.

We can profit by these examples if we:

--Build into our employment system a broader concept of apprenticeship and work experience;

--Establish in our educational programs opportunities for students to learn more about the world of work;

--Build a system in which education and work experience are brought together to provide the kind of preparation that fits the needs of our society.

To achieve these ends, I am directing the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to make a thorough study of the relationship between our educational programs and our manpower programs, between learning and earning in America. By more closely relating the two we can reduce the high unemployment rate among young Americans.

In this task, the Secretaries will consult state education and employment agencies, local boards of education, business and labor leaders, and the special Committee on Administration of Training Programs which Congress recently authorized. They will also review such related problems as the difference between laws relating to the school-leaving age and those governing the age for entering certain occupations, and any applications of minimum wage agreements, laws or practices which inhibit experimentation in adding a work content to educational programs.

2. We Must Concentrate Our Efforts.

Six years ago, general unemployment plagued the country. Nearly seven percent of our workers could not find jobs. Every state and almost every city suffered. The situation was far worse in slums and depressed rural areas than in the suburbs-but unemployment was so widespread that it had to be fought everywhere.

The nation's employment map shows 150 major labor areas. In March and April of 1961, unemployment in tot of these areas exceeded 6 percent. At the end of 1963, 38 of these 150 areas still suffered high unemployment.

By the end of 1966, only eight of the major labor areas had an unemployment rate above six percent. An expanding economy, strengthened educational programs and public and private manpower training efforts, had created jobs and trained men to fill them.

But two million Americans needing employment assistance still remained--Americans who could be helped and who were willing to help themselves. Education, training, swift economic advances somehow had passed them by.

Last year, to develop a body of detailed information about these unemployed citizens and their problems the Secretary of Labor surveyed unemployment in selected slums throughout the country. This survey concluded that:

--Unemployment in the city slums is three times higher than the national average.

--One out of three potential workers in those areas is not adequately employed-including those who could be working but are not; those who are working part-time but want full-time jobs, and those who are working full-time but earning substandard wages. The results of this study show not only where the unemployed are but why they are jobless. The study concluded that despite the spectacular growth of our economy, despite improvements in the human and social conditions of American life, the unemployment rate in many of these depressed areas is as high as it was six years ago.

To the extent that the remaining unemployment is concentrated in these areas, our programs also must be concentrated. To scatter our effort now is to waste it.

I have asked Congress to provide an additional $135 million in fiscal 1968 under the Economic Opportunity Act for a new manpower program to provide special assistance to our most disadvantaged citizens. With these funds, we can:

--Focus our services more sharply upon areas and individuals in greatest need.

--Tailor these services to the requirements of each individual-counseling, health services, training, and follow-up assistance on a case by case basis.

--Enlist the support of local business and labor organizations--the key to any successful employment program.

But the need was too urgent to permit delay. Accordingly, I asked the Secretary of Labor and the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, in cooperation with the heads of other Federal agencies, to begin this special manpower program immediately with all available resources.

Our manpower programs also must be specially aimed at two other groups: seasonally employed workers and the handicapped.

Thousands of seasonally employed workers lead hard, uncertain lives. For them, employment is determined not by their abilities or opportunities but by the calendar. Among them are construction workers and hired farm laborers--especially migrant farm workers, who pick a meager living from the soil, "traveling everywhere but living nowhere."

To help these workers, I have asked the Secretary of Labor in cooperation with the Secretary of Agriculture and the Acting Secretary of Commerce to make a detailed survey of seasonal unemployment and underemployment--and to find ways to deal with these problems.

This study should seek methods by which Federal, state and local governments, through their contracting procedures and other activities, can reduce seasonal lags in employment, especially in the construction industry. It should explore the feasibility of a migrant manpower corporation and other ways to help regularize the employment of hired farm workers, particularly migratory farm workers.

For thousands of mentally and physically handicapped Americans, employment has too long been considered an exclusive concern of "charity." Yet, we know that many handicapped citizens can learn important skills, and can become effective workers.

I am directing the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to explore additional ways in which business, industry and government can provide more meaningful employment opportunities to handicapped citizens.

3. We Must Make Our Overall Manpower Effort More Efficient.

Our major commitment to an affirmative manpower policy is relatively recent. Many of our manpower programs are new, and we are still building the machinery to carry them out. By a combination of law and delegation of authority, the Department of Labor has primary operating responsibility for manpower programs.

But the problems of manpower development cut across organizational lines. They are closely intertwined with problems of social, economic and educational development. Accordingly, the Department of Labor has established close working ties with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Economic Opportunity and other Federal agencies having responsibilities in these areas.

Perhaps, the most important of these new working ties is the recent delegation of several OEO adult work and training programs to the Department of Labor. These arrangements link the Labor Department's responsibility in the manpower area with OEO's responsibility for coordinating antipoverty programs. They provide local initiative by the carrying out of local programs through Community Action Agencies wherever this is practicable.

We are working to strengthen those ties: to centralize, consolidate and streamline our operations.

The task of manpower development, of course, cannot be a Federal task alone. Recognizing this, we are placing greater emphasis on on-the-job training programs conducted by private employers.

As the demand increases for workers with special skills, we should take positive steps particularly to encourage private job training efforts:

First: We must obtain reliable information on which to base our plans. I have asked Congress to provide funds for a systematic study by the Secretary of Labor to answer these questions: What public and private job training programs are now available? Whom do they serve? What needs remain unmet?

Second: I am directing the Secretary of Labor and the Acting Secretary of Commerce, in cooperation with other Federal agencies, to establish a Task Force on Occupational Training. This task force, with members drawn from business, labor, agriculture and the general public, will survey training programs operated by private industry, and will recommend ways that the Federal Government can promote and assist private training programs.

Third: I have recommended that Congress provide an additional $5.6 million to enable the Secretary of Labor to aid private industry in experimental projects providing a wide range of services and training to seriously disadvantaged workers.

Fourth: I am asking the Secretaries of Labor and Agriculture to conduct a study to determine both short-term and future manpower needs and the supply of workers in rural America. With this information, we will be able to plan to meet the needs of our workers and of our rural economy.

4. We Must Make Military Service a Path to Productive Careers.

Members of the Armed Forces have an opportunity to perform vital military service. They can also acquire knowledge and experience to prepare them for civilian careers after their service.

In fiscal 1966, 750,000 servicemen completed specialized training programs. In almost 2,000 different courses, from automobile repair to aerospace technology, these young citizens have gained skills and experience which help them to obtain civilian jobs.

The Armed Services have also made educational growth possible for thousands of servicemen through the U.S. Armed Forces Institute and other educational programs. Nearly 80,000 servicemen earned the equivalent of a high school diploma last year.

In addition, the Secretary of Defense has launched "Project 100,000" to accept and train thousands of young men who were previously rejected as unfit for military service. Under this program, 40,000 young men are joining the Armed Forces this year. 100,000 will join next year. All will receive specialized training to help them become good soldiers--and later, productive citizens.

There are, of course, some military specialists whose training does not lead directly to civilian employment.

To help them, I have asked the Secretary of Defense to make available, to the maximum extent possible, in-service training and educational opportunities which will increase their chances for employment in civilian life.

5. We Must Work Toward a More Comprehensive Manpower Program.

If our manpower programs are to reach as many workers as they must, we should strengthen the Federal-State employment service so that it can improve job placement, provide better training and job information, and offer guidance and counseling to all those who need these vital services.

A sound economic and manpower policy also requires effective measures for maintaining the income of the worker and his family when working patterns change.

I urge the Congress to amend the unemployment insurance laws to provide training, guidance, or other services in conjunction with extended benefits to the long-term unemployed. I urge Congress also to extend the protection of the system to additional workers, to establish a more realistic level of benefits, and to correct the abuses which occur within the present system.

Along with the improvements I have proposed in the Social Security system and our public assistance programs, these steps will enhance the lives of millions of poor families and give them incentives to improve their education and their job potential. Further, I have proposed under the Economic Opportunity Act that Job Corpsmen, Neighborhood Youth Corpsmen and others engaged in work and training under that Act should be given greater incentives to work, by allowing them to earn more without a corresponding loss of welfare assistance to their families.

Our economic system must have adequate "manpower"--but manpower is not enough. The economic system is a means. Its end is the individual.

To better serve the deeper purpose of our manpower programs, we must seek answers to the most fundamental questions about unemployment.

I therefore urge the Congress to provide $20 million for a special census of 3 million households in America.

Among other data, this population census will give us vitally needed manpower information about unemployed Americans. It will provide for us a more complete profile of the jobless worker. Where does he live? How much education and training does he have? What are his health and economic problems? What other obstacles must be overcome to find and hold a job?

CONCLUSION

We know that a vigorous economy and an effective educational system are the bedrock of an effective manpower policy.

Our economy is healthy, and our unemployment rate is low. We work with constant vigilance to keep that rate low.

The eighteen landmark educational measures I proposed and you in the Congress enacted are symbols of our belief that education is the most important investment we can make in the nation's future.

Thus, on these foundations--a thriving economy and educational progress--we can shape our manpower policies to:

--Prevent the misuse, and non-use, of our youth.

--Meet squarely the problems of the two million Americans who need employment assistance and who stand ready to help themselves.

--Meet the needs of a burgeoning economy for skilled workers.

--Help workers with special employment problems--the handicapped, the migrant worker, the Armed Services rejectee.

--Bring workers to jobs as well as jobs to workers.

--Develop a closer partnership with business and private agencies. We are heartened by the progress of our manpower programs over the past years. This progress is not material for bold head lines: quiet victories seldom are.

One man's struggle to improve himself, to learn new skills and discard old habits, is deeply personal and often painful.

But each day victories are being won-in dozens of Neighborhood Youth Centers, in scores of Job Corps Camps, in thousands of training projects under the Manpower Development and Training Act.

Often our progress is measured not by what happened but by what has been avoided. The high school dropout whose name might have been recorded on a police blotters--but was not because he learned a skill and got a good job. The father of five who might have waited in line for his relief check--but did not because he was trained and went on to steady employment.

The yardstick we must use is not what we have accomplished in the past--but what we must do in the future.

We will do our best. We will try and try again. We will never lose sight of our goal-to guarantee to every man an opportunity to unlock his own potential; to earn the satisfaction of standing on his own two feet.

Our goal, in short, is to offer to every citizen one of the greatest blessings: a sure sense of his own usefulness.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON
The White House
May 1, 1967