Existing comment:
Does He Get a Job?
After serving their country, returning soldiers needed to be reintegrated into the workforce. In January 1918, an arm of the federal government established in 1907 principally to coordinate and study the influx of immigrant labor was transferred to the Department of Labor as the U.S. Employment Service. The wartime employment service aimed both to assist returning soldiers and to place workers in new jobs created by the war effort. In its first year, the service referred 6 million workers for 10 million job openings and issued broadsides like these to remind the public and employers of the country's obligation to those who had served. After the armistice, funding for the U.S. Employment Service rapidly dwindled. Within a year, the much-smaller service was operating chiefly as a clearinghouse for information. |