SAN FRANCISCO (UP) - Japanese-American evacuees who could fill at least 15,000 vital industrial and farm jobs are hesitating about returning here because of concern over housing and employment, Harold Boyd, chairman of the Council for Civic Unity of San Francisco, said Friday.

Boyd asserted that this is "hindering the war effort," and that the concern of the nisei has been due to a "misunderstanding" about available housing and employment. "The nisei are among the most skillful farmers," he said, "and farmers who have gladly used German war prisoners as farm labor, would be glad to employ American citizens of Japanese ancestry as free labor."

Only 12 Japanese have returned to the west coast since revocation of an army exclusion order against them."