This volume was prepared by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics with the cooperation of the following Bureaus of the Department Bureau of Employment Security Women's Bureau Alice K. Leopold, Director Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training Bureau of Labor Standards Arthur W. Motley, Director and the Veterans Administration U.S. Department of Agriculture U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Foreword The Department of Labor is proud to present this fourth edition of the Occupational Outlook Handbook. For counselors responsible for providing vocational guidance to others and young people considering their own career choices, it has been our aim to include within the pages of this book the best possible information regarding this Nation's present manpower needs and the employment outlook in the years ahead. Our growing economy creates an expanding need for skilled manpower that can be met only by enabling each individual to use his capabilities to the utmost. The U.S. Department of Labor is actively engaged, in several ways, in aiding the development of a skilled and versatile work force. We promote the development of skills through apprenticeship and other training programs within industry. We aid the State employment services in their programs of providing placement and counseling services. Finally, we carry on research and make information available on manpower needs and employment opportunities in the various industries and occupations, so that individuals can make their career choices, and educational authorities and industry can develop their training plans, on the basis of up-to-date, authoritative information. The Occupational Outlook Handbook is a major part of this research and educational program. It is our hope that the present edition, like the earlier ones, will assist many young people in making a wise career choice and will thus contribute both to their own life adjustment and to the best use of the Nation's manpower resources. JAMES P. MITCHELL, Secretary of Labor Prefatory Note This fourth edition of the Occupational Outlook Handbook supersedes the third edition, Bulletin 1215, published in 1957. Designed to provide the occupational information young people need to help them in career decisions, this book is the product of many years of research by the Occupational Outlook Service, which was established in the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Congress in 1940. The first edition of the Handbook was published in 1949. The wide use of this edition and the subsequent ones, issued in 1951 and 1957, attest to the need for occupational outlook information. More than 120,000 copies of these editions have been sold. Counselors in many high schools, colleges, and community agencies throughout the Nation rely on the Handbook in their vocational guidance work, as do Federal and State agencies offering counseling services-including the Veterans Administration, the U.S. Department of Defense, State rehabilitation agencies, and offices of State employment services affiliated with the U.S. Employment Service. Because of the rapid changes which characterize the American economy and the consequent importance of up-to-date occupational information for use in guidance, the Congress in 1955 provided for the maintenance of the Occupational Outlook Handbook and related publications on an up-to-date basis. This action has made possible the present edition of the Handbook, plans for subsequent periodic revisions, and the publication of a periodical, the Occupational Outlook Quarterly, which is being issued to provide a continuous flow of current information between editions of the Handbook. This fourth edition of the Handbook presents a reappraisal of the employment outlook in the occupations and industries discussed in previous editions, together with the most recent information on earnings, training requirements and other topics which was available early in 1959 when the book went to press. In addition, chapters have been added on a number of large and important occupational groups not covered in the third edition-including sales personnel, technicians, clergymen, school counselors, protective service workers, programmers, office-machine operators, motor vehicle drivers, instrument repairmen, stationary engineers, and workers in the missile, paper and pulp, and baking industries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the cooperation of hundreds of business organizations, unions, trade associations, educational institutions, professional societies, and government agencies whose officials gave freely of their time in discussing employment trends in their respective fields, in supplying information, and in reviewing and commenting upon drafts of the various chapters. Special contributions were made by the Women's Bureau and the Bureau of Employment Security of the U.S. Department of Labor, the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Education of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The Veterans Administration has also made a major contribution to the Handbook, since much of the basic research underlying this edition was carried on over the past 14 years with the counsel and financial support of that agency. EWAN CLAGUE, Commissioner of Labor Statistics Letter From the Veterans Administration The Occupational Outlook Handbook has long been a key resource in the counseling and training of veterans. Since the inception of the War Orphans' Educational Assistance program in 1956, it has been of equal value in the counseling and career planning of war orphans. Its increasing use by school and college counselors throughout the Nation is gratifying, and a further evidence of the basic counseling need met by this publication. The Veterans Administration is proud of its long association with the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor in the progressive development of the Handbook. The foresight of the Congress in authorizing the Administrator of Veterans Affairs to make current and reliable information on occupations available to veterans participating in the Vocational Rehabilitation and Education programs has been realized in a systematic and comprehensive series of cooperative occupational outlook publications extending back to 1945. The first edition of the Occupational Outlook Handbook, published in 1949, was a revision of a 1946 publication known as VA Manual M7-1, Occupational Outlook Information. Subsequent editions of the Handbook were published in 1949, 1951, and 1957. This new edition reflects a projected plan for revised editions at frequent intervals. The Veterans Administration is also continuing its cooperative support of the supplemental Occupational Outlook Quarterly and of periodic interim reports on the employment outlook in specially selected fields of work. Advances in the understanding and guidance of the vocational development of individuals depend in highly significant part on the systematic study and realistic portrayal of our increasingly complex and changing world of work. This Handbook is a major contribution to the achievement of that goal. SUMNER G. WHITTIER, Administrator Letter From the Bureau of Employment Security The Bureau of Employment Security considers up-to-date occupational information indispensable in carrying out its counseling and placement responsibilities. We are pleased, therefore, that the fourth edition of the Occupational Outlook Handbook as well as succeeding editions will be available on a regularly scheduled basis to employment counselors in the State employment services. The Handbook has proven to be a most helpful reference document on important occupational and industrial fields in our economy. About 10 million job seekers come to local employment service offices each year. About 900,000 of them receive employment counseling in these offices. Employment service counselors use the Occupational Outlook Handbook as an important source of national information to supplement the local, State, and national information they get through regular employment service channels. Employment service counselors also encourage counselees to read the Handbook for information that will help them in determining the extent of their interest in specific occupational fields and their possible qualifications for entering these fields. A copy of the Handbook is available for reference in each of the 1,800 local employment service offices. Occupational choice is so wide, and yet so critical to our manpower outlook, that the prospective worker must have the most reliable and up-to-date factual information on which to base his vocational decision. Increasingly, people seek professional help from a counselor in analyzing their own interests and abilities, and in matching these characteristics to job demands and employment possibilities. Such counseling help, along with job placement, testing, and other related services, is available in local employment service offices throughout the Nation. A brief description of what the public employment offices offer the jobseeker appears on page 7. On behalf of the Bureau of Employment Security and the affiliated State employment security agencies, I extend to all readers of the Handbook who are making occupational choices an invitation to go to the nearest local office of the State employment service if they wish additional information and assistance in formulating their vocational plans. ROBERT C. GOODWIN, Director Bureau of Employment Security |