The best paid employes are from “the coast”—some from New York—those earning $15.00 or less a week being Honolulans.
All the managers agree that native girls are desirable saleswomen, but that they lack energy. One manager said he would like to employ more native girls if he could secure efficient ones, because of their amiability.
There are a fair number of openings for new employes in the shops each year—from fifteen to twenty in all—and each manager has a waiting list.
The requirements are: a fair knowledge of arithmetic, a good appearance and good English. The saleswomen are not required to wear black because of the heat; but there is little extreme dressing, and the general tone of the shops is exceedingly good. Perhaps it will not be out of place to say a word in regard to the surprisingly quick time in which new styles reach Honolulu shops. All the buying is done in New York, and in general an excellent stock of goods is carried.
In the book, florist, jewelry, curio and art shops, and in the various stores, there are about 100 young women employed, some of whom combine office duties, bookkeeping or stenography with selling in the shop. The wages vary from $5.00 a week—paid the small Chinese beginner of fifteen—who has here clothed herself in American garb—to $85.00 a month for years of experience and a multiplicity of duties. The average wage is from $10.00 to $12.00 a week, and the majority of the saleswomen are Spanish, Portuguese and Irish. The restaurants employ girls as cashiers, but there are no waitresses.
These clerkships afford excellent employment for untrained girls with good manners, a good appearance and average intelligence, and during the winter season an extra force is maintained in practically all the shops.
SEAMSTRESSES AND NEEDLEWOMEN
The seamstress investigation developed two interesting facts: i. e., that the supply of workers is not keeping pace with the demand; and that the seamstresses at present available are for the most part self-trained.
A circular sent to 250 women who have households in Honolulu brought 110 replies, of which 8 stated that no seamstress was employed because of scarcity or inefficiency; 78 employed a seamstress regularly in periods varying from one week to eleven months, but for the most part from three to six weeks in the year. Of these more than half complained either of incompetence or slowness. Seamstresses who had served with dressmakers were the best paid and most satisfactory; but they formed a small group of only eleven. The majority were found satisfactory for plain sewing, but incapable of planning work, or incompetent in execution.
The remarks in reports are generally as follows: