occur? Simply because the training contract we entered into did not allow us sufficient funds to effectively administer such a decentralized operation. For the most part, on-the-job coaching and counseling had to be provided by the individual supervisor at the retail store level. Where this did not occur, the results-predictably-were bad.

Fourth, we should also note that our records indicate that some of those who left this particular program, 8 percent, did so to take better jobs. This is not part of the 17 percent retention.

Still others, another 8 percent, left for reasons which appeared unrelated to the job, including maternity, et cetera.

In our opinion, therefore, a close look at the prevailing conditions at the time of the implementation of this contract affords several distinct clues as to why it was not as successful as we originally had hoped. This view is strengthened when we compare its results from those generated by a similar training contract we performed simultaneously with the People's Drug program for Washington Gas Light.

For the latter program, 31 trainees were enrolled. Of these 31, 10 are either still employed or remain in the training program, a raw retention rate of 32 percent.

Senator NELSON. When was that program instituted?
Mr. ABERLIN. At the same time.

Senator NELSON. What date was that?

Mr. ABERLIN. July 15, 1968.

Of those trainees who left the program, one died, three were injured on the job and had to quit as a result, and three left for better-paying jobs. To put it another way, less than one-half of the trainees who enrolled in the Washington Gas Light program can be considered "failures," i.e., they did not respond positively to the stimulus of a working environment.

Even more impressive figures resulted from an earlier training contract we performed for Group Hospitalization, Inc., also using Department of Labor funds. Of the 23 trainees enrolled in this program, 13 are still employed-a raw retention rate of 57 percent. Of those trainees who left the program, one moved out of the area, one took a better job, one returned to school, and one entered the military service. A true failure rate than is an exceptionally low 26 per

cent.

Why did these programs fare so much better when they were conducted by the same trainers using simultaneous and almost identical methods as we employed at People's Drug?

To begin with, there was more financial incentive for the trainee. The jobs, though essentially entry level in nature, paid as much as $2.70 an hour. Moreover, at Group Hospitalization, Inc., the employees were employed at a single location. This permitted far more effective job coaching and counseling.

And I could relate to your subcommittee many, many other examples of how our training contracts worked out in actual practice. Many of them had happy endings, resulting in gainful and productive employment of a sizable segment of the training class. Other contracts, of course, although always well-intentioned, did not work out as happily. What this means, of course, is that there are no simplistic answers to the problems which we are addressing ourselves to today.

We have two MDTA contracts in Milwaukee, where the employment rate, the retention rate of those who go through our program is in the 70's-72 in one case, and 78 in the other case.

Senator NELSON. What are they being trained for there?

Mr. ABERLIN. This is job-entry level, basic education in one case, and secretarial upgrading in the other.

Senator NELSON. Are they both for skilled jobs?

Mr. BARTELS. One is for skilled jobs, and another is not. The retention rates are about the same.

Senator NELSON. What is the onskilled? What are you training for there?

Mr. BARTELS. In that case we are providing them with orientation, the will to work, and basic education. We refer them to the employment service then.

Senator NELSON. They don't have jobs at present?

Mr. BARTELS. No, sir.

Senator NELSON. Neither group does?

Mr. BARTELS. That is correct.

Senator NELSON. You are training them, and then referring them

to the employment service to see if they can get a job?

Mr. BARTELS. That is correct.

Senator NELSON. What percentage of those referred have gotten jobs?

Mr. BARTELS. I think in the case where we are referring the trainee who has had the basic education, I think that was running 72 percent of those employees referred to the State Employment Service are being placed in jobs.

Senator NELSON. How many people is that?

Mr. Bartels. We have the figures exactly. In the case of the other, we provide the trainees with GO type training. The percentage being placed on jobs is 77 percent. In terms of numbers there, a present contract will be some 55 to 60 trainees.

Senator NELSON. But these aren't under the JOBS program.

Mr. BARTELS. No, sir. It is MDTA, Manpower Development Training Act.

Senator NELSON. Do you have any programs with the employers who have contracts under the JOBS program with the Department of Labor?

Mr. BARTELS. Yes, sir.

Mr. ABERLIN. I don't seem to have immediately here the number

of trainees.

Mr. BARTELS. In the other division, it is approximately 60 to 70 trainees per year.

Senator NELSON. Per year, in each program?

Mr. BARTELS. It is approximately the same, yes, sir. Senator NELSON. Under that program how long is the training period?

Mr. BARTELS. The training program will vary. In the area where we are providing the orientation and the will to work, the basic education, we are speaking of a mean of 16 to 20 weeks.

Under the other contract where we are providing them with the clerk and general office skills program, our contract calls for 26 weeks of training.

Senator NELSON. Do they get paid during that training period?

Mr. BARTELS. Yes, sir.

Senator NELSON. What do they get paid?

Mr. BARTELS. I am not sure. I really don't know.

Senator NELSON. All right, go ahead.

Mr. ABERLIN. I have it here somewhere, and I can give it to you after I find it.

Senator NELSON. All right.

Mr. ABERLIN. It is our experience, for example, that in dealing with the hard-core unemployed it is not enough to simply offer a job on a take it and like it basis. There must be financial reward commensurate with labor and skill expended, or else the trainee will lose his incentive. There also must be at least the opportunity for upward advancement on the job if the trainee's motivation is to be sustained. The NAB JOBS program has been highly successful in obtaining pledges for jobs in business and industry. Both NAB and the Department of Labor, as well as a host of other agencies involved, most now concern themselves to an ever-increasing degreewith the quality, rather than the quantity of jobs provided.

We must face up to the fact that many employers still do not have any real idea as to effectively motivating the hard-core unemployed to become productive members of their work force. Job requirements, for example, a high school diploma, often have little or no correlation with the actual job to be performed. This is not to say that more education and more training is not needed for many jobs. It is meant to say, however, that specific training needs should be directly tied to real jobs. Yet many companies today do not even have adequate job descriptions, much less a clear understanding of the types of requirements a person must have if he is to fill a particular job.

All to often the rule of thumb is to set higher educational levels than are necessary and exert maximum disciplines to enforce demands for changes in life-style, dress, social patterns, etcetera. The employer, in dealing with the hard-core unemployed will have to realize that he, too, may have to make accommodations if his needs for a particular type of labor or skill are to be met. This type of accommodation is not unlike that offered by many employers today to married women in an effort to induce them to return to the working world.

Training programs for the hard core are most successful when the trainees largely work at a single location. This permits effective onthe-job coaching and counseling and permits continuous contact with affected supervisors. For this reason we plan-in the future to concentrate on training contracts with single firms in which the bunching concept will be implemented. Where decentralized operations exist to any sizable degree, it has been our experience that effective job coaching and counseling cannot be sustained with any degree of frequency and regularity.

Where businessmen do agree to implementation of meaningful training sessions, the Department of Labor and NAB must begin to process their application with all deliberate speed. Some of the best-intentioned businessmen have, in the past, become frustrated and embittered by unduly long processing delays. Priority should be given to employers and to subcontractors who have built up a successful track record. It would be helpful in this respect if the Department of Labor developed evaluative criteria by which to judge the training services provided by subcontractors. Monitoring of training programs must be established on a far more regular and detailed basis than has been experienced in the past and on clearly established criteria.

What all of this means, in the final analysis, is that employment programs can ultimately only be judged by how effectively formerly disadvantaged members of our society become assimilated, not merely tolerated, as members of our country's work force. The quality of jobs provided, the opportunities which exist for upgrading, the progress an individual makes once out on the job, are but some of the factors which will have to be effectively monitored in the future. As a first step, it is our recommendation that the Department of Labor discontinue its practice of checking contract performances strictly on the basis of attendance. This practice encourages businessmen to think in terms of training slots rather than trainees.

Our greatest apprehension with respect to the JOBS program, however, lies with the apparent policy of the Department of Labor to discourage and eliminate subcontractors providing services to MA programs. This seems to be an unwise policy, if indeed it is a policy, since many of the service groups have invested heavily in time and money to make the MA programs successful. The experience and results among the service group have been uneven, even within our own company as we have seen. This was to be expected in such a new endeavor. However, the investments have been made, the mistakes well noted and corrected, the fly-by-night operations have been, or will be, sorted out, and only the strongest, most dedicated groups have survived the early difficulties.

Senator NELSON. In the subcontracting field, we had testimony this morning from the American Learning Systems, Inc., witness in which he concluded that there had to be direct employer effort, and the training should be done on the premises, in the plant where the work is. Do you agree with that?

Mr. ABERLIN. Yes, we agree with that. In fact, in our presentation here, one of the difficulties we are stressing is the education of the employer. It is very essential that we have more than token involvement on their part to solve these problems.

Senator NELSON. Go ahead.

Mr. ABERLIN. Many of the service groups which have experimented in job-related education, orientation, job coaching and counseling now have a wealth of successful personnel and materials. To deprive companies participating in the JOBS program the experience of good subcontractors is to guarantee the repetition of errors and the squandering of both funds and goodwill.

Another disturbing tendency on the part of the Department of Labor and other Federal agencies is that of directing funding more and more exclusively to established public institutions. There are a few skill centers around the country which deserve both the title and the support. Many are public school establishments which have not really adapted to the needs of the trainee population. They have rather rigidly stuck to their conventional lock-step block programs. Their adult programs are warmed over from their long experience in citizenship classes. The principal problem is that it was in such an environmental, physical, and psychological, that many in the trainee population previously experienced failure and frustration. To cast them back into that environment is to program many for more and deepening failure and frustration.

In summary, let me say just that, in working within our own company and within many customer companies, and in working with hundreds of trainees throughout the Nation, we have learned a great deal about prejudice, discrimination, deprivation, the establishment, the man, etcetera. We have come to have some understanding of the deep and bitter frustration of minority groups in our country. We do not want to see the effort wasted.

Any program designed to perform at the cutting edge of society's most pressing problems is bound to run into difficulties. Any such program is going to be costly. Neither problems nor cost should be used as excuses to diminish the effort. Too much-much too muchis at stake in this program.

The JOBS program has not solved all of the problems it frontally assaulted. It could not be expected to in this time. But some beginnings have been made.

We are more aware now, than ever before, of just what exactly the problems are. Any psychologist will tell you that pinpoint identification of the problem is the all-important first step toward a solution.

Through the JOBS program, moreover, thousands and thousands of businessmen have been enrolled in the effort to turn disadvantaged and alienated members of our society into productive and gainful workers. The program is enhanced by the fact that it allows intensive supportive services tailor made to the job situation and that it involves a minimum of government involvement for the meaningful training programs that relate to their particular busiemployers. It offers businessmen the opportunity to tailor make ness, thereby, in the process, often filling critical labor shortages.

Given a certain tightening of administrative procedures, as previously outlined, these unique features of the JOBS program must be sustained if we are to keep faith with the disadvantaged of our society and if we are to maintain the working spirit of cooperation evidenced in many quarters of the business community. As I said before, we are one company which, despite some heavy financial reverses, remains steadfast in our conviction that the JOBS program can-and must-work.

We, as a company, take heart from the conviction that values and attitudes do not change overnight, merely from promulgation and well wishing. They change only through action-action which forces each party drawn into it to bend a little if a mutually desirable result is to be achieved. The early years of the JOBS program has seen all parties involved bending a little and sometimes more than a