PSYCHOLOGY IN INDUSTRY—EMPLOYMENT 441

AN INDEX OF EMPLOYABILITY
The evaluation of personal data in a systematic Tray can be carried
out with reference to any occupation or any group of occupations. An
interesting application of the method has been made by Newer,1 whose
object was to predict the employ ability of public-relief clients.
A survey of opinion among business, industrial, and United States
Employment Service personnel workers provided Newer with 16
factors that were commonly believed to be significant in determining a
relief client's employ ability. These factors (see Table 142) were
arranged into a convenient scale and were weighted in accordance with
the survey of expert opinion, so that a rating, or score, could be
calculated for any individuaL The scale was then applied in the spring
of 1942 to a random sample (206 cases) of the persons seeking relief
benefits in January, 1939 at the Onondaga County, New York, Depart-
ment of Public Welfare. A comparison of the calculated index of
employability with the actual number of months of employment that
each individual obtained during a subsequent 40-month period showed
that the index had a fairly high validity, in that individuals with high
indexes tended to secure more frequent or more permanent employ-
ment than individuals with low indexes. The coefficient of correlation
between the indexes and actual employment was .72.
TABLE 142.—FACTORS USED BY NEWER IN AN INDEX OF EMPLOYABILITY SCALE
Age Physical defects
Experience Education
Unemployment Previous wages
Nationality Prison record
Dependency Reason for leaving previous work
Race Sex
Religion Personality
Citizenship Home conditions
As a further check on the value of personal data in predicting an
Individual's probability of being employed, studies were made of the
composition of the personnel still on the relief rolls in January, 1943 and
February, 1944. As sho\vn in Table 143, the 1939 clients included a
fairly even distribution of employability scores throughout the range,
while in 1943 and 1944, as the relief clients were absorbed into the
increasingly available jobs, individuals with high indexes disappeared
1 Newer, Bernard S., An Employment Expectancy Rating Scale, Master's
Thesis, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, 1942. Reported also by
Oasety, M. A., An Index of Employability, Occupatiomj 1944, 22,477-483.