Mr. WILSON. We are talking about the numbers who have been hired and the number who have been retained and are still on the job. The figure of 432,000 were actually hired, and of those, 209,066 are still on the payroll with their original employer. Senator NELSON. And this 400,000 plus figure is hires from the day the program started? Mr. WILSON. That is correct. Senator NELSON. What was that date? Mr. WILSON. It was from the beginning, Senator, June of 1968. Senator NELSON. Of that 209,066, who are still at work with the original employers, what period of time, what is the range of the period of time they have been with the original employer? Mr. WILSON. Well, it could be any time from the beginning, June, 1968, to the present time, March 31st. Senator NELSON. So in that figure of 209,000 you have some people who were hired in the last few days, the day before March 31st. Mr. WILSON. Correct. Senator NELSON. Do you have any breakdown of the retention period for that 209,000 at all? In other words, how many of them are there for 2 years, or, rather since June 1st, 1968, and how many for 1 year and how many for 6 months? Mr. WILSON. No, we don't Senator. Senator NELSON. Do you have a breakdown by the month of how many were hired? You have 432,797. Do you know by the month how many were hired that gave you that cumulative figure? Mr. WILSON. I would defer to Mr. Hamilton, who has been in charge of our management information system. Mr. HAMILTON. Senator, in regard to the reporting that we have, it is a cumulative reporting system. In other words, everything that has been reported previously will be reported in the current month. Therefore, we are not able to determine, in answer to your question, in any given month how many people have been retained for any period of time prior to that report. Senator NELSON. Do you have a figure that shows how many, starting from the beginning, how many have been hired each month? STATEMENT OF CLARK HAMILTON, OF NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF BUSINESS CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS Mr. HAMILTON. Yes, we can show the net increment between this report and the preceding report. Senator NELSON. In your reporting system, could you lay out the 23 months since you started, and give the figure of how many were hired, in each one of those 23 months? Mr. HAMILTON. I would say we could do with a relatively high degree of accuracy since October, 1968. The reason the figures are not too good before that time is that there was no information system per se prior to that time. At that point, there was a regular reporting system established, and so I would say from October or November of 1968 through the present, we could give you a good indication of the monthly increase in the number of people hired. Senator NELSON. Would you submit that for the hearing record? Mr. HAMILTON. We will break those figures down for you and submit them. Senator NELSON. In each month, you end up with a net retained here of 209,066. Can you give us the losses during those same months? Mr. HAMILTON. Yes. The number of terminations that would be occurring in each one of those months. That is correct. Senator NELSON. If you would, submit that for the record. Mr. HAMILTON. All right. Senator NELSON. But you don't have a breakdown of this 209,000 telling us how many of them have been on the job for any specific period? Mr. HAMILTON. That is correct. I might add, Senator, that in December of last year we recognized that then it would be helpful to have a better method of being able to identify people who have been on board for certain prescribed periods of time. At that point, we began to press our employers to give us a separate figure on how many people had been with them for 6 months or longer. Now we are beginning to receive those figures. They are not complete at the present time. Mr. WILSON. The great majority of employers participating in the program do so voluntarily that is, without reimbursement from the Government. In this situation, any reporting system is far from perfect and it is likely that our figures include neither all of the hires under the program nor all of the terminations. We believe they nonetheless give a fair and accurate picture of the progress of the AB program. In the last report 73 percent of the companies which hired to date reported. We are currently developing a reporting system through social security records which will tell us how many of the so-called dropouts under our program move on to work with other employees, and how greatly their earnings increase as a result of the program. Preliminary reports show that the earnings of NAB trainees hired in 1968 showed a mean increase of 48 percent over their earnings in 1967. The information we have been able to gather on contract and noncontract hires shows that the characteristics of trainees hired under the voluntary part of the program are virtually the same as those Lired under the contract program. Senator NELSON. What do you mean by that? Mr. WILSON. The characteristics of the contract hires and the noncontract hires. Senator NELSON. In terms of length of period that they retained the job, for example? Mr. WILSON. I will ask Mr. Hamilton to answer that. Mr. HAMILTON. There are two parts to the NAB/JOBS reporting program. First, there is a tally count submitted on a quarterly Mr. WILSON. We are talking about the numbers who have been hired and the number who have been retained and are still on the job. The figure of 432,000 were actually hired, and of those, 209,066 are still on the payroll with their original employer. Senator NELSON. And this 400,000 plus figure is hires from the day the program started? Mr. WILSON. That is correct. Senator NELSON. What was that date? Mr. WILSON. It was from the beginning, Senator, June of 1968. Senator NELSON. Of that 209,066, who are still at work with the original employers, what period of time, what is the range of the period of time they have been with the original employer? Mr. WILSON. Well, it could be any time from the beginning, June, 1968, to the present time, March 31st. Senator NELSON. So in that figure of 209,000 you have some people who were hired in the last few days, the day before March 31st. Mr. WILSON. Correct. Senator NELSON. Do you have any breakdown of the retention period for that 209,000 at all? In other words, how many of them are there for 2 years, or, rather since June 1st, 1968, and how many for 1 year and how many for 6 months? Mr. WILSON. No, we don't Senator. Senator NELSON. Do you have a breakdown by the month of how many were hired? You have 432,797. Do you know by the month how many were hired that gave you that cumulative figure? Mr. WILSON. I would defer to Mr. Hamilton, who has been in charge of our management information system. Mr. HAMILTON. Senator, in regard to the reporting that we have, it is a cumulative reporting system. In other words, everything that has been reported previously will be reported in the current month. to Therefore, we are not able to determine, in answer your question, in any given month how many people have been retained for any period of time prior to that report. Senator NELSON. Do you have a figure that shows how many, starting from the beginning, how many have been hired each month? STATEMENT OF CLARK HAMILTON, OF NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF BUSINESS CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS Mr. HAMILTON. Yes, we can show the net increment between this report and the preceding report. Senator NELSON. In your reporting system, could you lay out the 23 months since you started, and give the figure of how many were hired, in each one of those 23 months? Mr. HAMILTON. I would say we could do with a relatively high degree of accuracy since October, 1968. The reason the figures are not too good before that time is that there was no information system per se prior to that time. At that point, there was a regular reporting system established, and so I would say from October or November of 1968 through the present, we could give you a good indication of the monthly increase in the number of people hired. Senator NELSON. Would you submit that for the hearing record? Mr. HAMILTON. We will break those figures down for you and submit them. Senator NELSON. In each month, you end up with a net retained here of 209,066. Can you give us the losses during those same months? Mr. HAMILTON. Yes. The number of terminations that would be occurring in each one of those months. That is correct. Senator NELSON. If you would, submit that for the record. Mr. HAMILTON. All right. Senator NELSON. But you don't have a breakdown of this 209,000 telling us how many of them have been on the job for any specific period? Mr. HAMILTON. That is correct. I might add, Senator, that in December of last year we recognized that then it would be helpful to have a better method of being able to identify people who have been on board for certain prescribed periods of time. At that point, we began to press our employers to give us a separate figure on how many people had been with them for 6 months or longer. Now we are beginning to receive those figures. They are not complete at the present time. Mr. WILSON. The great majority of employers participating in the program do so voluntarily-that is, without reimbursement from the Government. In this situation, any reporting system is far from perfect and it is likely that our figures include neither all of the hires under the program nor all of the terminations. We believe they nonetheless give a fair and accurate picture of the progress of the AB program. In the last report 73 percent of the companies which hired to date reported. We are currently developing a reporting system through social security records which will tell us how many of the so-called dropouts under our program move on to work with other employees, and how greatly their earnings increase as a result of the program. Preliminary reports show that the earnings of NAB trainees hired in 1968 showed a mean increase of 48 percent over their earnings in 1967. The information we have been able to gather on contract and noncontract hires shows that the characteristics of trainees hired under the voluntary part of the program are virtually the same as those hired under the contract program. Senator NELSON. What do you mean by that? Mr. WILSON. The characteristics of the contract hires and the noncontract hires. Senator NELSON. In terms of length of period that they retained the job, for example? Mr. WILSON. I will ask Mr. Hamilton to answer that. Mr. HAMILTON. There are two parts to the NAB/JOBS reporting program. First, there is a tally count submitted on a quarterly basis by each employer. This gives the number hired, the number terminated and the number on board for each employer. In addition, we request employers, and we are not always successful, to submit a hire card on each individual trainee hired. This is a contractual requirement under the contract portions of the program, but there is no method of compelling volunteer employers to do it, except by persuasion and exhortation. As of the end of March, for example, on hire cards, we had 118,000 hire cards from volunteer employers and 59,793 hire cards from contract employers. So, this is 40 percent of the total number of trainees hired in the program. Now, we can derive from these hire and terminate cards figures the length of time the trainees have been on board. However, these figures are not complete, and they do not comprise a rigid sample. Senator NELSON. The contract employers are required to report, are they not? Mr. HAMILTON. That is correct. Senator NELSON. So that represents 100 percent of the contract employers. Mr. HAMILTON. That is right. Senator NELSON. And what percentage of the other group, did you say? Mr. HAMILTON. It is 118,000, so that would be roughly 40 percent. I am sorry no, it won't be 40 percent. It would be roughly one fourth of the total number of hires. Senator NELSON. On page 3 in the last report, 73 percent that you mention, does that include contract employers as well? Mr. HAMILTON. I am sorry? Senator NELSON. The last sentence in the last paragraph on page 3 refers to 73 percent. Is that 73 percent both contract and noncontract employers? Mr. HAMILTON. That would be all employers submitting their tally cards, as distinct from the hire and termination cards. Senator NELSON. As distinct from what? Mr. HAMILTON. This would be 73 percent of all the companies hiring, and submitting the tally card, versus the hire cards which are based on individual trainees. The tally cards are submitted for the company as a whole, for all of the trainees that they have. Senator NELSON. So that 73 percent represents both contract and noncontract employers? Mr. HAMILTON. That is correct, sir. Mr. WILSON. We believe that they show that we are reaching the target population defined for us under the Government definition of disadvantaged. We also find that the characteristics of jobs offered do not differ greatly between contract and noncontract hires and the majority are for good jobs, at reasonable wages, with valuable training or work experience, and an opportunity to enter the mainstream of a productive and rewarding life. In a program as large as ours, there will inevitably be some failures and some disappointments. I am sure it is obvious to the |