Equal pay in computer work

This is the age of computers - and this is the time of opportunity for young men and women interested in getting in on the ground floor.

Shell-Mex and BP Ltd are offering a number of career opportunities for young people between 18 and 25 to train as computer operators in Hemel Hempstead. All you need for these interesting posts is intelligence, preferably good GCEs, but not necessarily — and the right aptitude.

If you are a young man and you start at 21 you could expect a good salary in excess of £1,200 a year including London weighting and shift pay for three shifts, or if you are a young woman of the same age you would get in excess of £1,100, for operating on two shifts.

Although Shell-Mex pays the same salary to men and women, the lower salary is calculated on the basis of two shifts, because fewer women work at night.

They will take on school-leavers, and young people already in jobs. If, you are already working you will probably be doing clerical work somewhere, probably with some responsibility.

When they take you on they will train you over a period of six months, after which you can expect a salary review. This will include two weeks full-time training and on-the-job training.

It is the first time that young women have been given this opportunity by Shell-Mex and they hope that girls who apply for the posts will compete with the men for promotion.

Equal training will be given to both sexes and will be all-round training in one of the most modern of technologies, computing.

By all-round, they mean a training which will equip the individual to do the many jobs in computer operating, creat­ing a sound platform for career advancement.

The climate of expansion in their new department in Hemel Hempstead town centre will bring responsibility.

The individual with ability must succeed in this highly competitive but stimulating atmosphere.

Like all worthwhile jobs the trainee starts at the bottom, and life is not all glamour. However — even at the most junior level the job is a highly responsible one. There are both mental and physical demands, but the rewards can come quickly.

The physical aspects are associated with the demands made by the shift system, and the actual job of feeding the data to the computer.

Mentally the job requires individual alertness, which develops with experience.

Though the firm empha­sises the role of the individual — this is essentially a team job, where each member makes a contribution to the total effort.

Taken from an "Advertisement Feature" in a local paper. Date unknown, but probably early 1970's

£1,200 is equivalent to about  £13,000 in todays (2010) money. When I started work for SMBP in 1969 I was on about £850pa. Seemed like a fanastic salary back in the day, but today would be under the minimum wage.