Discrimination against Jews by employers in the Chicago area has risen sharply since the end of the war, according to a survey released here by the Bureau on Jewish Employment Problems.
The report cites the fact that discrimination is much more widespread in Chicago than in New York, which has an anti-bias law. A comparison between the Chicago survey and one made in New York City by the National Community Relations Advisory Council discloses the following facts:
1. In Chicago 93 percent more complaints of employment discrimination were filed at the Bureau in the six months following V-J Day, than in the corresponding period last year. In New York, however, there was a decline of six percent in the number of complaints.
2. Fifty-two percent of Jewish applicants in Chicago, almost two-thirds of them veterans of World War II, were required to state their religion in interviews with one or more employers. In New York the comparable figure was 15 percent.
3. In Chicago 97 percent of commercial employment agencies required that applicants state their religion and lineage, while in New York the corresponding figure was two percent.
4. In Chicago 37 percent of all business firms approached for employment required information about the applicant’s religion, while in New York the corresponding figure was eight percent.
5. Fifteen percent of Jewish applicants in Chicago experienced, besides questions on religion, additional concrete evidence that they were refused jobs because of religion. In New York this figure was seven percent.
6. Discriminatory religious specifications in help-wanted ads in 1946 increased 144 percent over 1945 in Chicago, while no discriminatory ads were published in New York City newspapers.
On the basis of these findings the Bureau on Jewish Employment Problems came to the following conclusions:
1. That employment discrimination against Jewish workers is sharply increasing in the Chicago area.
2. That serving their country did not earn for Jewish veterans a fair opportunity for employment as they were subjected to even more discriminatory practices than other Jewish workers.
3. Comparing the Chicago survey with a similar report from New York, it seems clear that the existence of an FEPC statute in the state of New York has been effective in preventing overt practices of employment discrimination.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
