PROBLEMS OF EMPLOYEE RECRUITMENT TO A FACTORY IN A RURAL AREA
| Date | 01 October 1963 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1963.tb00992.x |
| Published date | 01 October 1963 |
| Author | B. N. Seear,K. E. Thurley |
PROBLEMS OF EMPLOYEE RECRUITMENT TO
A
FACTORY
IN
A
RURAL AREA
B.
N.
SEEAR"
and
K.
E.
THURLEY**
THE
brief study described here was undertaken primarily to throw
light on the manpower problem of one company. Businessmen have for
a
long time recognized the value of economic and technical investiga-
tions to assist them in their decisions, but it is much less usual for them
to be aware of the need for social data of the kind presented here.
The conditions under which the investigation took place meant that
the collection of information of wide general interest was subsidiary to
the main purpose.
As
it turned out, however, facts emerged which are
relevant for problems of general concern, including
:
(1)
the choice of employment of rural school leavers, and the factors
(2)
the attitudes of married women to paid employment;
(3)
the development
of
industry in a rural area subject to urban
(4)
manpower planning.
influencing this choice;
influences;
The Cambridgeshire
Study
In
1960
a company with several factories in Great Britain was
contemplating an expansion which, if carried out, would call for a large
increase in the number of semi-skilled female workers, and a small
increase in skilled male workers. The company was not certain in
which
of
its factories this development should take place. The prefer-
ence of the board inclined towards a long-established factory situated in
a rural area ten miles from Cambridge. They were not sure, however,
that the supply
of
labour would be adequate, since employment in
Cambridge was easy to get and was proving attractive. The factory was
dependent on labour recruited from a net-work
of
relatively prosperous
villages and hamlets, and
a
market town, Saffron Walden. The manage-
ment of the factory had for some time had considerable difficulty in
maintaining the existing labour strength, and the directors were un-
willing to make the proposed investment until they had good reason to
expect that the necessary labour would be forthcoming. What facts did
they need to help them assess the situation and how could these facts be
obtained? One of the directors approached the authors
of
this article
and explained the position to them. The company wanted to reach
a
+
Senior Lecturer in Social Science at the London School
of
Economics and Political
Science.
++
Lecturer in Social Science at the London School
of
Economics and Political Science.
24'
7
242
BRITISH
JOURNAL
OF
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
decision quickly and the resources available were limited. They wanted
their plans to be based on something better than guesswork, but a full-
scale research programme, even if finance had been available for it, could
not have produced results by the time the decisions had to be made.
Nonetheless,
it
seemed to the authors that a limited study would be well
worth doing. The company had recognized the relevance of social factors
to industrial development, and had realized that these factors were not
self-evident but required investigation. The only way to tackle the
problem was to select a small number of salient aspects of the question
and to explore them quickly, but the authors hoped to show that a small
scale, short term study could be of value, despite the inevitable limita-
tions the circumstances imposed.
The Problems
to
be Explored
After reviewing the material already available in the company, the
investigators decided that the minimum additional information needed
called for four related studies to discover
:
(1) Facts, mainly from official sources, on the employment situation
and the existing distribution of labour in the area.
(2)
The geographic distribution of population in the company’s
catchment area, analysed by age, sex and marital status, to
indicate existing untapped resources and future possibilities.
(3)
The attitudes of potential employees towards different types of
work, with special reference to industrial employment.
(4)
The factors in the company’s personnel policy favourable or un-
favourable to the recruitment and retention
of
employees.
The Employment Situation
Information obtained from the official statistics and from interviews
with the Ministry of Labour and the Youth Employment Service showed
that the outstanding feature of the employment position in the Cam-
bridgeshire area at the time of the study (July, 1960) was the very high
degree of full employment. In the district covered by the Cambridge
Labour Exchange, which included the great majority of the company’s
potential labour supply, only
0.3
per cent. of the insured population
aged fifteen or over was registered as unemployed, compared with 1.3
per cent. for the country as a whole. In no part of the country was the
figure of unemployment lower than in Cambridge.
Unfortunately, the Ministry of Labour areas do not correspond with
the areas used
by
the Census for analysis
of
population, but a rough
assessment of the importance of the Cambridge Labour Exchange area
can be seen from the 1951 Census figure. Of the 166,887 total population
of Cambridge Administrative County, 81,500 (48.1 per cent.) lived in
the Cambridge Municipal Borough. In the outlying areas unemploy-
ment rates were somewhat higher, but their population was small
in
To continue reading
Request your trial