The Alaskan Gold Rush Labor Crisis
While Seattle’s docks overflow with men seeking their fortune in the north, local mills and employers struggle to find day laborers, leaving jobs unfilled and potential workers desperate.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Although the Seattle population of men looking for work has been increasing lately by arrivals from Alaska and the Yukon, there is employment for all able-bodied men within a short distance of the city. Laborers, millwrights, and teamsters are in demand, and the average pay is $2 a day. It has been stated that men are daily arriving from the north in a destitute condition and that they should be given help. According to Clerk James of the Free Employment Bureau, there are any number of jobs vacant in the state for day laborers. 'At the present time,' he said to a Star reporter this morning, 'we can place 150 day laborers. Most of the jobs are within easy distance of the city. The applications for positions have fallen off lately, and we cannot secure enough men to fill the positions. Of course, I do not refer to the city. Loggers are chiefly in demand, and in failure cases, the fare is being advanced. There are not many very hard jobs in the city, or we would receive more applications for positions. We have now from 100 to 150 applications a day, but many of the men are too particular as to the nature of the work they want.'
“Many of the men are too particular as to the nature of the work they want.”
This 1899 report on the mismatch between labor availability and the harsh realities of the local economy mirrors contemporary Seattle, where despite rapid urban growth and influxes of new residents, the gap between the jobs available and the needs of a vulnerable, under-housed workforce remains a persistent civic friction point.
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