Abstract
AN article by D. R. O. Thomas (J. Inst. Personnel Management, 29, No. 293; September-October 1947) directs attention to the possible effect on industrial efficiency of the withdrawal of large numbers of young men for national service requirements. Under the Act, which becomes operative on January 1, 1949, men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six years are to be called up for national service for a period of twelve months, the actual call-up age being eighteen, and thereafter each man will serve 5½years with the reserve, during which he is required to do sixty days training. This, and the new developments under the 1944 Education Act in respect of the raising of the school age to sixteen years and the establishment of county colleges, will mean that industrial organisations will be faced with the prospect of starting youths in employment at sixteen years and afterwards releasing them for one day in five up to eighteen years, when they will disappear altogether for twelve months. On return to employment, the young man will be required to do two weeks Service training per year for 5½ years, which, together with his annual holiday, may mean his being absent from industrial employment for one month in every twelve until he is about twenty-five years of age.
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Conscription and Industry. Nature 161, 304 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161304b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161304b0