TNAG-0244-FCO40-280-Exports-of-textiles-from-Hong-Kong-to-USA-1970 — Page 122

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A very high proportion of the employees fall into categories we call semi-skilled. In manufacturing generally, in the United States, about 44% of the workers are classified semi-skilled. In textiles 67% are semi-skilled and in apparel 78% are semi-

skilled.

Workers in both these industries tend to be older than the average and have less education than the average in all-manu- facturing. It is for these reasons, and because training re- quirements to become a worker in these industries are relatively low, that textiles and apparel provide an entrance into industry for newcomers to the labor force. These industries, therefore, have become of major importance as a source of employment for our minority groups.

In the textile bill industry, for example:

Negro employment in 1962 was

in 1968

4.8% of the total 9.5%

In the apparel industry:

Negro employment in 1962 was

in 1968

9.3% of the total 12.7%

These data are not as up-to-date as we would like them to be, however, from available indications, the trend of Negro employment is continuing upward.

These figures can be supplemented by data on the employment of the Puerto Rican minority group workers in the New York and Philadelphia urban centers. A survey of a half.dozen large apparel producing firms in those areas indicated that the per- centage of Negro and Puerto Rican production workers range from 25 to 65 percent of the total number of production workers in those firms. It further indicated that up to 90 percent of the Negroes and Puerto Ricans in those firms were hired during the past five years.

There is another factor that should be considered. As the textile industry in the South hires more and more Negroes, this has an effect on slowing down the flow to the urban centers and ghettoes in the northern cities. The effect of this in turn, is to ease, somewhat, the social and economic pressures on our urban centers.

Let me cite from a newspaper, the Charlotte Observer of August 17, 1969, wherein it is stated that the textile industry is helping to solve the national problem of Negro migration to the northern ghetto. In a recent interview, the Governor of South Carolina Robert McNair stated:

"Without meaningful, inport controls the less sophisticated segments of the textile industry the very operations that often hire the most Negroes eventually will be transferred overseas.

The Observer article notes:

"The number of Negroes employed in textiles in the two states has gone from less than 6 percent in 1964 to at least 20 percent today from 21,000 to more than 85,000 workers.

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