HINE SHOP PRODUCTS

According to the United States Census, foundries and factories making
machine shop products gave employment in 1909 to nearly 18,000
Cleveland wage-earners. This industrial group ranks first in the city,
employing more than twice as many workers as the next largest
industry,--automobile manufacturing,--and approximately two-fifths of
the total working force in all metal industries. Its growth during the
previous five years, from the standpoint of number of workers
employed, showed an increase of about 33 per cent, and it is
estimated that the total number of wage-earners in 1914 was
approximately 25,000. At the present time, due to the impetus given to
this branch of manufacturing by the European war, the working force is
undoubtedly in excess of this figure.

The report gives extended consideration to the machinist's trade,
which constitutes by far the largest body of skilled workers in the
city. This trade has been affected more than any other by the progress
of invention and the modern tendency towards specialization. In many
establishments the all-round machinist, competent to do independent
work and operate the wide variety of machine tools now used in the
trade, had practically disappeared. In his place are found
"specialist" machine hands who have learned the operation of a single
machine tool, but have no general knowledge of the trade, and who if
called on to perform work requiring the use of a machine tool
different from the one on which they are employed are unable to do so.
There are hundreds of drill press hands who cannot operate a milling
machine, lathe hands who know nothing of planer work, and so on. The
subdivision of these occupations follows closely the advance in
invention, so that employers advertising for help frequently specify
not only the machine tool to be used but add the name of the firm
which manufactures that particular type of machine, with the result
that there are about as many kinds of machinists as there are
manufacturers of machine tools. Table 18 shows the estimated number
of men employed, with their distribution in the various branches of
the trade.

TABLE 18.--PROPORTIONS AND ESTIMATED NUMBERS EMPLOYED IN MACHINE TOOL
OCCUPATIONS, 1915

--------------------------------+------------+-------------+
| | Estimated |
Workers | Per cent | number |
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