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3.  Our study indicates that over 7 per cent of all air line pilots leave their jobs for physical disqualifications or disabilities which would, if the pilot were examined, disqualify him.  As those who are familiar with pilots know, those of us who fly keep a pretty good check on our physical condition; rather than have a disqualification marked against us, we prefer to change our job, if we can, before the doctor tells us we must.

The air lines found a one per cent rate where we get 7.  The employers' figure is ridiculous on its face.  I think the complete data will show our tentative figure to be low.  But the 7 per cent figure is clear evidence of the validity of our contention that pilots suffer from a very high rate of occupational disability.

4. Job security has a lot to do with the length of working life in an industry.  Pilots' jobs are not secure:

(a) Almost one out of 5 air line pilots loses his job for lack of work.  The post-war rate is higher than it was in depression.  This fact doe not, perhaps, bear directly on the problem of retirement.  But it is an indication of the economic insecurity of pilots.  Any sort of insecurity emphasizes and underscores insecurity at the time of retirement.  The Air Lines Negotiating Committee found lay-offs to account for about 1 in 10 separations; this was in part because the data stopped with 1945.  Over 64 of the separations in our tentative study occurred in 1946 and 1947.

(b)  The insecurity of and the working conditions involved in the pilot's occupation, apart from employer-initiated lay-offs, caused almost 1 in 8 of all separations and over 1 in 5 of the resignations.  In total insecurity in its different manifestations--physical, lack of work, or the threat of these--caused 46 out of each 100 pilot separations.  In relation to the period, this is an astonishing proportion.