yee. They expect you to use methods in selecting and assigning
employees and handling them after they are selected that will yield the
largest possible permanent results.

HIGH COST OF HIRING AND FIRING

Employers who will take the trouble to study their records for some years
past, will, unless they are very exceptional, find that the average length
of service in their organization is much shorter than they would be
prepared to believe unless the actual figures were before them. We have
the word of its manager in regard to a certain foundry in the Middle West
that the average period of employment for any one man in that foundry is
only 30 days. We know a large steel mill employing 8,000 where the average
length of service per employee is a few days more than four months. These
figures were given to us by the employment manager of the mill. The head
of the employment department of a large electrical manufacturing company
stated to us that the average length of service per employee for his
organization was one year or a little less.

From "Current Affairs," Boston, we quote the following significant
editorial:

"Do employers realize the waste and extravagance and actual money loss due
to haphazard hiring and firing?

"Twelve typical factories were recently investigated as to their
employment records by Mr. M.W. Alexander. He chose the normal industrial
year of 1912. He chose representative factories, big and little, in
several States. The results of this inquiry were reported in an address
before the National Association of Manufacturers.

"Mr. Alexander found that this group of factories had 37,274 employees at
the beginning of 1912, and 43,971 at the end of the year--a net increase
of 6,697 workers. But the books showed that the factories had actually
hired 43,571 new hands, 35,874 having been dropped during the year Of
course, not all were fired. Some were absent because of sickness, some
died, some left voluntarily; but these were only a small proportion. And
the fact remains that in order to increase their working force by 6,697
these twelve industries had to break in 42,571 new employees and suffer
the consequent extra expense of instruction cost, reduced production, and
beginners' spoiled work. Making liberal discounts for the workers
unavoidably withdrawn, it is estimated that these twelve factories
suffered a definite money loss of more than $831,000 during the year on
account of reckless hiring and firing