Job Hunting in the '30s
Communications Technology
October 1987 pg 14

The "terrible '30s" as the newly graduated scientists called that Depression-ridden era, featured high levels of unemployment, businesses barely surviving from day to day and a surplus of scientists for every vacancy. The abundance of job opportunities today and the high prevalent wage scales will cause you to luxuriate in your good fortune as compared to the difficult experiences faced by job seekers then.

At that time, a laborer could earn as little as 25 cents per hour. Secretaries and office personnel were fortunate to find a steady job at $12 per week; $25 per week was above average for the working non-professional. Government jobs were eagerly pursued since they offered security and high pay. I was informed by my New York relatives that I should spend all of my time pursuing a license to teach in the New York City schools at the princely sum of $3,500 yearly!. Unfortunately I discovered quickly that not only were New York residents given preference over out-of-state applicants but one had to be sponsored by a politician with sticky fingers in order to enter the teaching profession.

Federal positions such as "Junior Observer in Meteorology" were favorite targets of the educated and I succumbed to the pressure and took the exam. Not having spent a minute of preparation in that field. I was delighted with my score of 94 only to be informed that enough applicants had scored 100 to fill the openings for the next century!

If you couldn't find a job on graduation, and I didn't, you regarded graduate education as a worthy alternative. Armed with wildly enthusiastic letters from my professors I applied to over 50 universities for a fellowship in physics and prepared to live an aesthetic lifestyle for the next several years. Alas for such optimism! Turn out that there were at least 10 applicants for every opening and the natural reaction of the administration was to set up standards and quotas that they were perfectly willing to expose to your scrutiny, knowing that the quantity of applicants and the picket fence of quotas would screen out anyone with whom they had the slightest qualms. I had to go on to graduate school at my own expense (no science-based job was offered to me for two years).

After spending four years during World War II in the signal Corps as a radar officer (a Science-based job at last), the drought was over. Good jobs at good pay were easy to secure (I hope young engineers find this scenario alive forever). Now, back to the "terrible '30s."

One summer while an undergraduate, a friend with inside influence in a machine shop worked his magic and I spent a happy vacation as an unskilled lathe operator for 35 cents per hour rough cutting steel bars for the real machinists. As a novice they almost convinced me to ask the stockroom for a supply of "hens teeth" for the final finishing polish to the steel bearings. Once I thought I had a real job as a radio engineer. It was at a small company that had fled from Brooklyn to the Connecticut wilderness in order to lower space and people costs. The wage scale created for the highest paid employee was $25 because they could not find a local radio serviceman willing to take a job with unlimited calls on his time for the ever present emergencies. Their principal products were versions of a basic five tube radio wholesaling for $5. All, I repeat all of the parts were rejects and we spent as much time troubleshooting problems as building the radios. Here is one typical problem. The speakers usually emitted a sshing sound caused by the voice coil rubbing against the pole-pieces. My despicable solution: a wad of tissue paper between the grill cloth and the cone! What do you want for $5? When the boss began to hand out paychecks with the caution to wait two weeks before cashing the check, it was time to move on.

Finally, my experiences in the heart of electronics America, the downtown area in NYC surrounding Courtland Street. Upstairs, in a dingy unpainted loft of the XYZ Capacitor Corp. the owner eyed me suspiciously; why would a Physicist lower himself to work as an engineer in a capacitor factory? Grudgingly, he admitted there could be an opening. but I would have to work two weeks at no salary to prove I could hack it and then the salary would be $25 with increases as I produced new products to prove my value. This offer was repeated in a similar language at a retail electronics store and a coil winder. At least a dozen more enterprises had no openings at any price. By the way, I also would have had janitorial duties at the store.

One could survive in those days at $25 since a full meal in a Bowery restaurant could be had for 25 cents and the Chinese restaurants offered half a hogshead of chop suey for 35 cents, sufficient for four engineers. Single room lodgings were available at $6 weekly, Movie houses on14th Street charged 10 cents and some even threw in a live striptease act for the patrons. Subway fare was 5 cents and crime was a statistic but not a personal concern. If you had a job, New York was perfection personified.

Count your blessings, you lucky employed scientists; it was not always thus.