That section of the field of labour hitherto regarded as the exclusive property of men is being rapidly invaded by women. Some of the professions and trades which women are now entering for the first time are:-
Medicine, Toy-making, Railway clerical work, Architectural drawing, Carriage cleaning, Debt collecting, Grocery, Motor driving, Engineering, Banking and accountancy.
More than one reference has already been made in The Times to the first of three. In the booking offices of some of the great Continental railways women have been employed for some time. In this country, though the woman booking clerk has yet to appear, some of the railway companies have already engaged a number of women in the clerical and accountancy departments; and there is a strong tendency for the movement to grow. In Scotland women carriage-cleaners are already at work, and have given every satisfaction. There would appear to be a good opening, too, for the employment of female labour in dining saloons and as waiters on liners.
In the distributing trades there has always been a great number of women assistants; one or two grocery firms are now taking up the idea of engaging women to do the work of the men who have gone to the front, and the innovation has been successful. Careful training is necessary for this kind of work, and arrangements have been made by the Association for Women's Employment to provide the necessary tuition as soon as the demand for women shop assistants in the grocery business is sufficiently large. The Shop Assistants' Union has sent from 25 to 30 per cent of its 81,000 members to the front, so that an enormous number of vacancies has arisen which must be filled somehow. But the Union is anxious that the employment of women shall not depreciate wages or keep male assistants out of work after the war.
The Women's Emergency Corps has done excellent work in introducing a new calling for women, namely, that of toy-making. The Chapel of the Annunciation in Carton Street, W., has been turned into a factory where a number of girls are engaged in making wooden toys. These are designed on the premises and cut out of wood with treadle-driven saws. They are coloured by hand, and the trade is already drawing extensively on the factory. Girls who hitherto have in several instances been clerks and typists show a surprising aptitude for the work. They can make as much as ú1 a week and are able to earn half this amount while still receiving instruction.
In one or two instances women have been engaged in architects' offices to do clerical work, and some are thus able for the first time to turn to profit a gift for drawing. One case has occurred of a woman undertaking the work of collecting bad debts. Motor driving is not an entirely new profession for women, but the war and consequent enlistment of many chauffeurs has given it an impetus. There are a number of women motor drivers, too, who are willing and anxious to become taxi-drivers, but up to the present the authorities have refused to license them. In Paris numbers of taxi-cabs are now driven by women.
