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It will be seen that the great majority of women
registered for national service will be available, if at all, for local
work only, and probably in the main for local part-time work. This being
so, it is important to find out at an early stage which women are able
to leave home to fill jobs in areas where there is a great demand for
labour.
The older the age groups, the fewer women they
contain who can be transferred for war work to other areas. But many of
these women can be used to replace in their own areas young “mobile”
women in jobs in office and shops that are not directly connected with
the war, but that still necessary to the community. Thus this
registration and direction of the older women contribute, through
indirectly, to the recruitment of women for essential war work.
 The
Employment of Women (Control of Engagement) order, 1943, which has
followed a similar but more restricted Order made in 1942, controls the
movements of women workers who are between the ages of 18 and 40
inclusive. This corresponds to control by deferment of men up o 41. The
control was necessary because although women can be directed into war
jobs at the time they are interviewed, it may happen that they change
their employment afterwards, going into work that may not be the most
important for them to do in the national interest.
So the Order makes it compulsory for employers to
engage any women in these age groups only through the official
Exchanges, and to take no step to find such labour except by notifying
the Exchanges. Similarly, women of these groups may not obtain
employment otherwise than through an Exchange. For placing women with
special technical or professional qualifications, The Appointments
Offices of the Ministry are used. The Control of Employment Order,
introduced in 1943, enables the Ministry to make sure that men and women
who leave their jobs take up further employment without undue delay.
The purpose of these moves should now be clear;
they do not represent bureaucracy cutting down individual liberty and
grabbing power for its own sake; they are made to ensure that our war
effort is based on a planned structure, that labour goes where it is
most urgently needed, and that those who have at least some knowledge of
the whole intricate picture of our manpower situation shall decide when
and where our manpower shall be used.
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