12 BULLETIN 12*5, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
The private employment offices visited handled various classes 
of labor, some specializing in particular types. All were licensed 
under similar State laws and usually under the control of State 
labor officials, so their business practices were rather uniform. Fees 
charged applicants for employment were regulated or subject to 
the approval of specified authorities, but there appeared to be no 
such regulation of those charged applicants for help except in Penn- 
sylvania. Most agencies charge both parties to a placement trans- 
action. Charges for the applicants for farm employment run from $1 
to *'2 usually, and those for the applicants for farm help from $1 to 
S4 per worker placed, more or less according to what the agencies 
think they can collect. The competition of the United States 
Employment Service is tending to force a reduction of private agency 
fees. 
Xew York and Xew Jersey laws require licensed employment 
agencies to ask an applicant for work to give, when possible, the 
names and addresses of former employers or of persons to whom such 
applicant is known. Farmers seeking help seem to make little use of 
these references. In time of labor scarcity they are forced to ignore 
the desirability of investigating them. The visited employment 
agencies keep no record of a man's successive appearances at their 
offices or of his performance on jobs which he accepts. Most agency 
officials depend largely upon their ability to size a man up by his 
appearance and his story at his first appearance. Furthermore, 
many men reappear, and the agents often acquire a working knowl- 
edge of their reputations and abilities from the men and from their 
former employers. 
A large proportion of the farm hands who patronize employment 
agencies appear to be an unsettled, roving class, men who for va- 
rious reasons stay on their jobs only a short time and can not or do 
not try to get new jobs near their old ones, partly because of their 
inefficiency. In fact, some employment agency officials consider 
most farm hands as of this character. That this impression is 
partly untrue is usually seen when one is in contact with the farm 
hands actually working in a district. Many of them are residents 
there and have often been employed in the locality or on the same 
job for years. \Vork comes to them, or they are able to get sufficient 
Avork near by and do not need to patronize an employment agency. 
There was some complaint that officials of private employment 
agencies encourage men to stay on their jobs only a few weeks, and 
that they discriminate against men who hold their jobs any length 
of time by sending them to undesirable jobs when they return to the 
agencies seeking employment. It is stated that the agencies aim to 
collect as many fees as possible. Some agencies were said to be 
charging more than legal fees when sending men to jobs. 
To facilitate judgment of an applicant's knowledge of the work 
desired, an official of the United States Employment Service in Xew 
Jersey is working on oral trade tests for many occupations. These 
trade tests are made up of questions and answers concerning char- 
acteristics of the job under consideration. Each question is framed 
to closely require a certain short, definite answer nor likely to be 
known to an inexperienced person. A perfected system of such 
tests should materially aid employment officials in the satisfactory 
placement of workers. 
