Irregularity of Employment.
Closely connected with the question of wages is the possibility of being out of a job. If a girl is earning $10.00 a week she may be able, with the most careful saving, to lay aside enough to tide her over two or three weeks of unemployment. But the savings from a $10.00 weekly wage do not last long. Twenty-eight per cent. of these women were out of work one month or longer in the past year because of the slack season, illness, change of their place of employment or for some other reason. The girl who cannot save is in a desperate condition indeed. For her, prolonged unemployment means debt, heart breaking anxiety and dependence.
Girls in restaurant work do not get vacations with pay except in very rare instances. One well-known New York firm having tea-rooms in various parts of the city, is to be congratulated on the fact that it does give its waitresses a vacation with pay. A few of the married women, or those who have families to care for them, can afford to take time out of the year’s work for a rest. But when a girl is not working, it is for the most part a matter of stern necessity and inevitably means a time of struggle and suffering.
Restaurants do not labor under the difficulties of seasonal employment. We should expect to find a steadiness in this occupation which the facts do not bear out. It is therefore evident that the instability of the work and constant shifting is due to the unsatisfactory nature of the employment itself. The large proportion of workers out of employment for one month or more a year (20%) is striking evidence of this fact.
Diagram 12.—Weekly Wages of Women Employed in Restaurants according to Length of Time in this Occupation.