Skill Requirements and Industrial Training in Durable Goods Manufacturing

The publication in 1955 of the National Manpower Council's symposium on Improving the Work Skills of the Nation and the appearance of the Rockefeller Reports in 1958 mark the emergence of a persistent, if not mounting, national concern with the adequacy of the supply of skilled labor. Interest in labor skills, of course, is not new; the long history of vocational schools, work experience programs, and apprenticeship programs attest to the contrary. But the earlier interest was focused primarily on meeting the needs of factory owners in an area or of individual workers. Now, on the other hand, such reports as those mentioned above state that a shortage of skills, should it exist or should it come to exist, will handicap the achievement of national, as well as private, economic goals. It is against this background of concern about the supply of skilled labor that this article was written. Essentially, it covers three points on the use and development of work skills in manufacturing industries: (1) The differences among various types of plants in the proportion of skilled and technical workers in total employment. A priori one would expect variations in the utilization of skills to be found, and the possibility exists that they are systematic. A crude taxonomy is presented, which distinguishes among plants the degree of reliance on skilled and technical personnel. (2) Types of skill development programs that are used in manufacturing plants. (3) Some possible explanations for the emphasis, or lack of emphasis, put on skill development in different kinds of establishments. These tentative explanations are based to some extent on the implications of the classification scheme of (1). (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)