6. Improvement of the unemployment insurance system, with provisions for realistic uniform requirements under the Federal-State system. This should involve the strengthening of employer plans for unemployment benefits and severance pay, and special attention to the worker nearing retirement.

7. Public and private support for measures to protect a worker's job equity and security without impairing his mobility. These measures should include transfer rights, improvement of pension rights and the shaping of seniority rules to facilitate mobility.

8. Strengthening the public employment service so that it can effectively place, counsel, and relocate workers both locally and across State lines.

9. Vigorous and unremitting efforts by all segments of the population to eliminate discrimination in employment because of race, creed, age, or sex.

10. Public development projects with Federal assistance where necessary.

11. Antirecession policies such as tax cuts and public works programs-which should be set up so as to automatically go into effect when the economy begins to slump.

Because of the complexity of technological developments, no one solution to the problem will suffice, and no one group or institution can do the job which must be done. If we are to enjoy the advantages of technological growth without suffering the adverse effects that may go along with it, the various segments of the economy must cooperate, and each must do its part.

[From Challenge, June 1961]

THE SIXTIES-MANPOWER HORIZONS-MACHINES

VERSUS MEN?

(By Eli Ginzberg)

On a recent visit to California I saw what may be "the shape of things to come" in the way manpower will be used during the decade ahead. Surpluses of semiskilled workers have developed; at the same time the competition for scientists and technicians has become intense. Consequently, many workers holding down full-time jobs are trying to raise their level of skill by attending college. A senior official of UCLA told me that the campus is busier at 9 p.m. than at 9 a.m.

The obvious truth is that machines are taking over semiskilled jobs. In the new self-service parking centers, for example, attendants are unnecessary. And the batteries of automatic vending machines burgeoning on every hand dispense with the services of clerks. Other efforts to economize on the use of service personnel are widely evident. It seems, to this economist at least, that other nationwide trends in the use of manpower are most apparent in California. A tremendous governmental effort in education insures that an ever-higher proportion of young people will complete at least junior college before entering the job market. The continuing rapid mechanization of agriculture is further shrinking the opportunities for year-round employment in farming. The increasing number of married women

holding down paying jobs is adding substantially to family incomes and to the demand for goods and services. Finally, the Federal Government is playing an important role in the expansion and contraction of employment, primarily through its military procurement policies. These appear at the moment to be the important trends, but caution must be used in prognostication. Past experience shows that the more general the manpower forecast, the more likely it is that it will be proved false.

Toward the end of World War II almost all the leading economists warned about a prospective unemployment level of 8 million or morea level never even approached, much less reached. Just prior to the outbreak of the Korean war a Government agency warned about the coming surplus of engineers; but during the next several years professional engineering organizations were predicting serious shortages in the supply of engineers. These calculations, in turn, soon proved to have been considerably off the mark.

Similarly, the ominous predictions made by many organizations about a serious crisis on the teacher front have been proven false. The elementary and secondary schools certainly do not have all of the qualified teachers they need, but the grievous gap between supply and demand predicted by prophets of doom has simply failed to develop.

MANPOWER ESTIMATES

It is easy to be wrong in making manpower estimates, for the market has a way of righting itself, at least partially, when it faces major imbalances. If engineers are in short supply, technicians may be trained in their place. If there is a shortage of qualified teachers, educators reappraise optimum class size, stress self-study, use "teacher economizing" devices such as TV and try to draw former teachers back into employment.

Furthermore, if the market by itself is unable to reestablish an effective balance between supply and demand, Government action is likely. In the face of shortages of trained personnel, education and training can be expanded. In the face of labor surpluses people can be encouraged to retire earlier (the objective of amendments to the Social Security Act before Congress as this is written) or the schoolleaving age can be raised. Perhaps most important, the Federal Government can force the pace of the economy by general or specific legislation aimed to increase the demand for labor.

There is no longer any need for a modern industrialized society such as ours to remain passive in the face of serious underutilization of its manpower resources. To say that this is not likely to happen again in our society may be the only manpower forecast that has a good chance of being right.

Now that the inherent limitations to manpower forecasting have been pointed out, what can be set down as useful reference points for assessing the manpower situation of the 1960's?

In the absence of large-scale war, demographic trends are among the more stable factors in any manpower forecast. Most of the people entering the labor market at a given time were born about two decades earlier. The year after the men came home from the war-1946-the birth rate rose; thus, in 1964, the number of young people to turn 18

will jump in a single year from about 2.7 to about 3.3 million. (In 1951, which was 18 years after the low point in the birth rate during the great depression, less than 2 million young persons reached 18.) Throughout the current decade, the proportion of 18-year-olds entering the labor market will decline as more of them go to college, and more young women marry and start families. In spite of these factors, however, not much relief from the pressure for new jobs can be expected. From now on the number of young people to turn 18 will increase each year. The full impact of the larger number of jobseekers will probably be felt in 1966 or 1967, perhaps before.

The order of change between the 1950's and the 1960's can be summarized thus: in the early 1950's fewer youngsters turned 18 because of the drop in the birth rate two decades earlier; at the same time the demand for young people was up because the Korean war produced an expansion of the armed services and industry. In the middle 1960's, by contrast, the number of 18-year-olds will be substantially larger because of the growth in the birth rate two decades earlier; moreover, barring a radical change in the international scene, the manpower requirements of the armed services will be reduced-partly because of their increasing reliance on a career force.

VERITABLE REVOLUTION

There are many other facets of the potential supply which are more cloudy. Still, reasonable estimates concerning their impact can be made. The shortage of workers during World War II and the shortage of young people in the late 1940's and 1950's made it possible for increasing numbers of married women to find jobs outside the home, thereby bringing about what the National Manpower Council has referred to in Womanpower (1957) as a veritable revolution in the employment of women.

The forces that helped to bring about this revolution do not appear to have spent themselves, and it is, therefore, reasonable to forecast that the 1960's will see a substantial increase in the number of women in the labor force. And the available statistics undoubtedly understate the size of this potential source of labor. For many women who would like to work do not search for jobs because they believe, usually correctly, that opportunities are not available. Several years ago I estimated conservatively in my book, "Human Resources: The Wealth of a Nation," that there were 5 million women not currently employed who would work if jobs were available.

Surplus farm labor has long been a major source of the long-term increase in the nonfarm labor force. There is every reason to anticipate that this situation will persist. There are now probably between 1 and 2 million persons on farms who are there only in the absence of a strong industrial demand for labor.

The essence of the farm problem is a manpower surplus-too many people, many of them underemployed, producing too much. And the amount of surplus labor on the farm can only climb in the years immediately ahead because of the coming increase in 18-year-olds and accelerated mechanization. If American agriculture as a whole is not to become a "depressed area," it is essential that many people now living on farms be relocated in cities. Or, alternatively-as has begun to

happen in certain areas in the South, the Middle West, and the Far West-new plants must be located in farming areas so that those who continue to live on farms will have a chance for industrial employment.

There are still other important sources of future workers: the more than 5 million who are currently unemployed and those who will be displaced from their present jobs as a result of technological changes. What are the possibilities that these people will find new jobs in the years ahead?

The immediate outlook is not particularly encouraging. Recovery from each of the last several recessions left the country with a higher level of unemployment than did the previous recovery. Therefore, unless a very strong and sustained upturn follows the present recession, the numbers of the "chronically unemployed" may be both absolutely and relatively greater than during the previous disappointing periods of expansion.

While the conventional interpretation of this disturbing trend has been primarily in terms of the premature exhaustion of the forces of economic expansion, there is another facet of the problem that warrants attention. Rapid technological changes are now taking place in heavy industry-steel, automobiles, rubber, paper, glass, among others with the consequence that more and more semiskilled production jobs are being permanently eliminated. The need for a strong recovery is, therefore, that much more urgent.

A sustained period of economic expansion would undoubtedly result in some increased employment in these sectors. But most of the expansion would undoubtedly occur in other sectors-particularly in the service trade. It does not follow, however, that men displaced from heavy industry will find it easy or even feasible to find a place in the expanding service sector. There are such crucial matters as location, occupational ties, trade union affiliations, and skill qualifications.

Above all, it is very difficult for a skilled machine worker who formerly earned over $3 an hour to settle for $1.50 or less in a service trade. He is likely to hold out for a long time hoping to regain a place in his old industry. By the time he accepts the fact that he must make a radical change he may be in such a weakened competitive positiondue to age, lack of resources to finance retraining and years of unemployment-that he will not be able to find another job. A man is not quickly convinced that his luck has run out. He who builds his life on hope and pride cannot easily sacrifice both.

There is every reason to question the assumptions of those who are currently optimistic about the longrun outlook for employment. Employers are eager to speed the introduction and use of automatic machinery. Their willingness to pay a high-money price for union sanction of their plans to automate is an indication of the importance they attach to reducing labor costs by eliminating large groups of

workers.

RELEASED FROM EMPLOYMENT

To the extent that they succeed, the years immediately ahead will see large numbers of older persons released from employment long before they are ready for retirement. Younger persons will also find themselves out of work. They will have little option but to search for a new occupation, frequently in a new locality. Older workers will shift

more slowly, and when they do convince themselves that it is necessary to change their occupation or residence, they will encounter greater difficulties in finding work.

There is another aspect to the impact of the new technology on the future supply of labor. Many new automatic machines are being introduced into the clerical and service trades which, in recent decades, have met most of their labor needs by employing women. The high turnover rates for women are making it relatively easy for these sectors to install major laborsaving devices without precipitating large-scale unemployment. There may be no overt technological displacement of labor in clerical and service occupations, but the longrun opportunities for employment may either fail to expand or actually decline.

Are there any forces on the horizon which will tend to reduce the number of potential jobseekers? Reference was made earlier to the fact that education and training is taking longer than it used to. This trend is likely to continue and, to the extent that it does, will operate to relieve or at least postpone some of the pressure for jobs.

BETTER OFF WORKING

But there is another aspect to the trend toward lengthening the period of education that warrants comment. There are probably several million young people above the age of 15 currently in school who are there not out of choice but through coercion; they are not there because the school is making a significant contribution to their acquisition of knowledge and skill, but because our society has failed to work out any effective alternative. Probably at least one out of every four young persons above the age of 15 currently in high school would be better off working. But because of law and custom, jobs are not available for them. They must remain in school even though they will learn little if anything from doing so. A sound society should try to contribute more to the development of those adolescents who have little aptitude for or interest in bookish matters, but who are eager for the work experience they must have if they are to develop properly. We need not worry, as many educators do, that leaving school early necessarily implies the end of formal education for such young people. With increasing maturity, many would undoubtedly learn to appreciate the value of additional education and would return to school part time, or even full time, to increase their knowledge and training.

Retirement may speed the flow of persons out of the labor force. All of the evidence suggests that the trend toward earlier retirement, which set in many years ago, has persisted throughout the 1950's and will continue in the 1960's. Those who are now in their late forties and early fifties are likely to see retirement as a much more attractive prospect than did their more work-oriented parents.

There is one factor that may operate in the opposite direction and keep more older persons at work. The longevity of women is increasing. The average woman lives 7 years longer than the average man, and since she marries a man 3 years older than herself she faces 10 years of widowhood. In recent years an increasing proportion of women in the 55 to 65 age group have been active in the labor force.