III. Turnover, Training, and Efficiency of Negro Domestic and Personal Service Workers
The increase of 13,738,354, or 14.9 per cent, in the total population of the United States during the last decade, and a decrease of 367,667 in the domestic and personal service occupations population increases the possibilities of turnover. In 1890, the average tenure of service of a domestic worker in the United States was less than one and one-half years.[5] Ten years later the average length of service of a Negro domestic worker in the seventh ward of Philadelphia was five years less than one month.[6] Many of these workers perhaps had been for a long time in the older families of Philadelphia. Figures for a three-year period, from 1906 to 1908, show that the modal period of service of the New York Negro domestic worker was at that time from six to eleven months.[7] In 1914, among 104 unskilled Negro workers of St. Louis—cooks, laundresses, porters, chambermaids, waiters, scrubwomen, manual laborers, and the like—the greatest frequency for length of service among the men was from one to three months, and among the women from three to six months.[8] Six years later the largest proportion of Negro domestic workers of Gainesville, Georgia, showed a disposition to remain in one position less than three months, while the next largest proportion remained in one position from three to six months.[9]
Some concrete illustrations of the frequency of turnover may be referred to as further evidence. Nearly two hundred different women were sent out from the Springfield, Massachusetts, office for day work in 1915. Two years later over 500 different workers were sent out from that office, about 200 of whom were Negro women. Of these 167 white women and 124 Negro women were placed with employers less than ten times in 1917; 2 white and 4 Negro women were sent out from 41 to 50 times; 3 white and 1 Negro woman were placed fifty times during 1917. In 1918, the Springfield office reported as having filled 4,000 places with 1,000 women.[10]
In 1920 the United States Employment Office, Washington, D. C., placed 1,488 different women for day work, all of whom were Negroes except one. Of these, 458, after being given permanent positions for every day in the week, were referred again not over twelve times; 23 of them were sent out over fifty times, and 5 of them over one hundred times during the year. General housework was so unpopular during that year that few would take it. Although the turnover in day work was greater than that in any other specific employment handled by the domestic service section of that office, the 164 cooks remained in one position on an average of about three months.
There was, however, in the District of Columbia during the fall and winter of 1920 a decrease in the rate and volume of turnover for Negro day workers and hotel workers consequent upon the minimum wage law which became effective for hotels and restaurants in the spring of 1920. Many Negro women displaced in the hotels turned to day work. For this reason added to the normal increase during the first half of 1921, the number of day workers increased to 3,115. White workers did not have to apply for day work because they could secure positions in hotels and restaurants.
During an unemployment period which extended over the latter half of 1921 and the first half of 1922, when so many men were thrown out of work, the day workers increased to 4,615. There were more day workers than there were positions for them. Consequently the turnover in day work decidedly decreased, but it increased in general housework. Many who could not get a sufficient number of days' work to make ends meet were forced to turn to general housework.
The difficulty of keeping an accurate record of the turnover in general housework makes the value of figures on turnover in general housework seem very questionable. However, the length of service of 1,000 general houseworkers sent out from the Washington office for the latter half of 1921 and the first few months of 1922 gives a fairly accurate picture of the situation at that time.
Length of Service of 1,000 General Houseworkers, Washington, D. C., 1921-22
| Table III | |
| 317 remained in one position 1 week or less. | |
| 582 remained in one position from one to three months. | |
| 101 remained in one position 4 months and over. |
Some of the conditions of the turnover at that time are illustrated by typical cases. One employer advertised for a general houseworker without laundry, with the privilege of going at night, and with hours off. Eleven domestic workers answered the advertisement in person, and no two met at the house at the same time. The employer engaged every one of them, to return to work the next morning. Every one of them gave assurance of being there, but not one of them came. Another employer with only two in family, very desirous of securing a general houseworker, called up six different employment agencies, each of which sent her a worker. Among the number there was one man. The employer put every one of them to work, each in a different room, with the idea of choosing the two best ones at the end of the day and engaging them for permanent work—thus assuring herself of securing one worker. She managed her plan, as she thought, very successfully, but the next morning she did not have a single worker.