"Ncesc (North Carolina Employment Security Commission) helping employers to Find Staff for business"

NC Employment Security Commission Out Of Commission NCESC.com Latency

The Employment Security Program is generally considered as having begun in North Carolina with the passage of the Social Security Act which was approved on August 14, 1935. It goes back further than this, further even than the passage of the Wagner-Peyser Act of June 6, 1933 for, wherever there is a free public employment office there is the ground work for potential employment security. The men and women who have served as chairmen of ESC since 1937.

ESC has played a key role in North Carolina’s economic vitality

Helping employers find the staff they need to carry out their business, serving as a career resource center for workers at all skill levels and age groups; supplying labor market data to government officials, researchers and others; and providing unemployment insurance to people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own.

As early as 1919 free public employment offices were in operation in this state. The salary of personnel was provided by federal funds, with other expenses paid jointly by city and county. Offices operated as branches of the U.S. Employment Service in Asheville, Charlotte, and Wilmington were placed under the State Department of Labor on October 1, 1919, with M.L. Shipman as Federal Director, but still financed by federal funds. However, the State's first official participation began in 1921 with the enactment of a law creating an Employment Service as a North Carolin Institution.

North carolina started with the gun

North Carolina was one of the few states that early recognized the value and importance to both labor and industry of a free employment service system. In 1921 the General Assembly passed an Act creating a free employment service under the Department of Labor with an appropriation of $10,000, matched by an equal amount of federal funds, for maintenance. Because of the small fund available the service was limited in scope and areas served. In addition to the offices in Asheville, Charlotte, and Wilmington, offices were established at Greensboro and Winston-Salem.

At that time the Department of Labor, then known as the Department of Labor and Printing, was devoted largely to the issuance of State publications and supervision of State printing. Little administrative attention was given to the development of this new agency for service represented by its public employment offices. However, in 1931 the Printing Department was divorced from the Department of Labor. It was reorganized and vitalized with the election as Commissioner of Labor of (then) Major A.L. Fletcher, who was pledged to make the Department an agency of service to labor and to industry.

National reemployment service

The Special Board for Public Works provided for in Title II of the National Recovery Act recognized this handicap, and the inability of the United States Employment Service to provide a nation-wide organization adequate and ready on such short notice to carry out the provisions of Title II with respect to the employment of labor under the $3,300,000,000 construction program. This program provided for the employment of local labor as opposed to imported or migratory labor; for minimum hours and wages, and gave certain preferences to veterans. Therefore, on June 22, 1933 this Special Board issued regulations under which the National Reemployment Service was promulgated as an emergency agency of the United States Employment Service to function under the terms of the National Recovery Act, the rules and regulations of the Public Works Administration and the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act.

Unemployment compensation starts

The Unemployment Compensation Act (tentative draft) submitted to the State as a result of favorable congressional action on the Social Security Act aroused little enthusiasm in the State. The people generally knew little of its provisions, and the employers of the State had not been sold on the broad principles which underlay it, as had been the case in accepting the Employment Service as a North Carolina institution. However, they had only the choice of accepting the national draft Act, without modification, or of contributing by taxation to the support of a national system from which they and their employees would receive no benefit.

Employment service returns

The Employment Service, upon transfer to the War Manpower Commission, was considerably expanded to meet war needs. While no record was kept of the total number of individual registrations for work during the war period because of the fast moving picture and labor scarcity, its effectiveness in its new role is revealed in the fact that during the years 1942 to 1945, inclusive, it made 995,071 placements, the peak being 1943 with 273,423 placements reported.