Constant Shortage of Secretaries Hampers Administrative Offices

An acute shortage of secretaries is forcing many University offices to share receptionists and hire part-time undergraduate typists, Nicholai F. Wessell, associate director of personnel, said yesterday.

In what Wessell called "the worst September for hiring in the last 15 years," the Personnel Office has had a constant list of about 100 jobs waiting to be filled. At least 30 of these are always for typists and shorthand experts.

Although University salaries compare favorably with others in Boston, the Office is "pretty pessimistic" about any improvements in the situation, because the number of student wives and single girls who apply for jobs has greatly diminished recently.

Until about three years ago, Harvard had its choice of graduates in the top third of every major women's college, Wessel explained. But then the big industrial companies suddenly realized the talents of college girls and began to hire them too.

And so, the present labor force is totally inadequate. To temporarily plug the secretarial gap, the Personnel Office has offered to send otherwise competent applicants to typing school and to give dictaphones to any professors who will accept them in place of secretaries. "No one seems very eager to take us up on the dictaphones though," Wessel said. "In the long run, I guess we'll just have to hope for an increase in the birth rate."