Mr. Adams.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner.

If you would, would you state your official position with the Texas Employment Commission, please?

Mr. Adams.

I am employed as a placement interviewer.

Mr. Jenner.

And do you have persons under your supervision and direction?

Mr. Adams.

No; I do not.

Mr. Jenner.

Tell me what is the Texas Employment Commission?

Mr. Adams.

The Texas Employment Commission is the Texas version of the Federal-State Employment Service. As such, it is operated and jointly federal-state funded, and seeks to assist those people who are unemployed primarily through finding employment for them and in the event that we are unable to do so, to provide them with unemployment compensation for such time as they may be eligible.

Mr. Jenner.

I happen to be an Illinoian myself. I practice law in Chicago--it's tied in with the Unemployment Compensation Commission?

Mr. Adams.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner.

And those who had suffered unemployment seek the assistance of the Texas Employment Commission to obtain for them new employment?

Mr. Adams.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Jenner.

How does that operate, do you--do the employers register with you or they call you up--I would like to have you give me a normal operation so that we can compare that background on normalcy against what might have occurred with respect to Lee Harvey Oswald.

Mr. Adams.

Normally, employers in all categories of business and industry will use many avenues to obtain suitable employees. One of them, hopefully used by most of them, is the Texas Employment Commission.

Mr. Jenner.

I said to you that my impression from the depositions we have taken is that your commission does have and is held in reasonably high regard by employers and the ones I have interviewed have indicated that they may resort to the commission rather frequently.

Mr. Adams.

I am delighted to hear it. It is a selling job--this is not your main thing, but ,because it is a State-Federal organization, it has been subjected to a lot of unpleasant publicity which was formerly known as the Texas Unemployment Commission, which did nothing to enhance it.
I worked on the street for a while calling on businesses and more often than not I ran into people who were very dissatisfied with the commission because of previous poor service, or alleged poor service, and in the time that I have been with the commission, 2 years, I think we have striven to improve the quality of service, both to employers and to applicants and so employers do call us. Some of them have standing orders with us. Some of them use us once and they don't get what they want and that's the last we hear from them, but by the same token we hope that all people unemployed would come to us in the course of their efforts to find jobs. I think many people mistakenly assume that TEC exists to find them jobs. This is not true. TEC exists to help them find jobs and in the course of their job seeking, they, I suspect 75 percent of them, will register with TEC and with other agencies.

Mr. Jenner.

Other like agencies or private employment agencies?

Mr. Adams.

Private agencies and, of course, we have the continuing battle of the public versus private activities.

Mr. Jenner.

The scope of employment, that is the work, is of great variety, is it, the jobs that are being served?

Mr. Adams.

Yes; all the way from laborers up through doctors of philosophy in varying fields.

Mr. Jenner.

Do you ever seek, for example, let's use a hypothetical day--you mention a doctor of philosophy--let's say he had a Ph.D. in geology, and he came to the commission. You do not have at the moment, let us say, with respect to this hypothetical Ph.D., an inquiry from a prospective employer. Do you mean that the TEC would in that kind of an incident--a man of quite high education, would you seek a position for him by calling possible employers?

Mr. Adams.

Yes; we would do this and we refer to it either as job development or the projection of a highly qualified applicant to selected employers who might be in need of such a man.