STATE NEEDS 3,439
MORE BEET WORKERS
Employment Service Looks to Japanese, Spanish-
Americans and Indians and to Conscientious Ob-
jectors to Supply Sugar Harvest Needs.
Confronted by its own figures showing a serious shortage of workers, the United States employment service in Denver Wednesday looked to Japanese, Spanish-American and Indian labor, conscientious objector camps, and to other states to augment the inadequate local supply of labor for Colorado's 1942 sugar beet harvest–now but three weeks away.
A survey of labor supplies and demands for the beet harvest, just completed by the employment service and county agricultural war boards in the beet areas, shows a shortage of 3,439 workers in Colorado.
L. A. West, Colorado director of the employment service, said an estimated 18,960 workers are needed. Only 15,521 now are available in the state, the survey revealed.
TO BRING IN WORKERS
WHEREVER NECESSARY.
The 3,439 shortage, West said, will be "taken care of immediately" by bring workers into those areas where specific shortages are indicated. These workers will be given jobs in other crop activities until the beet harvest begins, he said.
Sources of other workers, West said, include New Mexico, where 400 Spanish-Americans now are available and 600 Indians will be available later; also the Japanese relocation center at Granada, Colo., where 8,000 Japanese will be located, about 40 per cent of them potential beet field workers.
The Japanese assembly centers in California and the conscientious objectors' camps at Fort Collins and Colorado Springs also were listed among possible labor suppliers.
Local offices of the employment service throughout the state will be told to list all available labor and to throw every possible work into the beet harvest.
POOLS OF UNSKILLED
EXPECTED TO HELP.
Unskilled labor pools established by union locals thruout Colorado may be expected to provide men for farm work. Men unemployed even for a day will be directed to beet harvest jobs, the unions have agreed.
Japanese workers, it was stressed by West, will be used only in areas indicating a desire for this type of help.
Services of conscientious objectors, West said, will be used only in areas indicating a desire for this type of help.
Services of conscientious objectors, West said, will be especially valuable where a housing shortage exists, since these men will be taken back to the camps each night. There are 150 men in the objectors' camp at Fort Collins and 187 in the one at Colorado Springs, West has been informed.
Most of the 15,521 workers now available within the state are engaged at present in hay and vegetable harvesting, but West said it is "quite certain" these workers will turn out to harvest beets because of the favorable wage scale this year.
"I am confident the sugar beet crop will be taken care of without loss," West said.
