“Who’s going to cut my hair in 25 years?”

That is the question that might be asked by men in Williamsport and elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

The ranks of Pennsylvania’s licensed barbers are being thinned to the point that it is causing concern.

“Very few young fellows take up barbering these days. I don’ think there are any more than one or two apprentices here in town,” says Harry W. Motter of 429 Louisa Street. He is the president of the Barbers’ Union, Local 587, American Federation of Labor.

“Most of our barbers in Williamsport are between 40 and 50 years of age,” Motter added. “With few young barbers coming on it looks as if we are definitely in for a shortage in the future.”

This condition isn’t peculiar to Williamsport. The state board of barber examiners reports that its rolls contain fewer than 18,000 barbers and that it supervised only 946 apprentices during 1955.

Since apprentices normally work and study for two years before being examined for a state license, that means fewer than 500 new barbers a year.

This decreased interest in barbering is not something new. There has been a gradual decline from a high of 28,000 barbers in the state.

Barbering doesn’t seem to appeal to the young men who step from high school or military service into industry. Long –and low paid apprenticeships holds no lure for them.

“Barbering is a production business,” one veteran barber explained. “No barber can afford to pay an apprentice much until he can turn out some hair cuts.”