THUS Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz expresses the reason for the consideration being given in many quarters to adapting our educational and vocational training institutions to a society in which a man may no longer reasonably expect to spend his working years in the job for which he trained as a youth.

Not only must we educate our youth in a different way than in the past, but we are faced with the necessity of training or retraining a large number of adult workers-and we are beginning in a period of relatively high unemployment.

AT A WORKSHOP of the American Society of Training Directors on Training for Technological Change held in New York City on November 1,⚫ education, labor, industry, and government spokesmen provided various and sometimes conflicting insights on the issues involved.

On the problem of fitting the worker who has no skills or whose skills are obselete to the changing occupational structure, Professor George H. Hildebrand of Cornell University suggested for consideration of the training directors that workers currently employed be retrained for the more demanding of the new skills required by industry. thus freeing lower level jobs for those of the unemployed who are less capable either for lack of basic education or ability, or who for other reasons are not readily susceptible to training for highly skilled jobs. This proposal would seem to imply a great deal of on-the-job training. Professor Harold F. Clark, co-author of Classrooms in the Factories, has estimated that more than 75 percent of all large industrial concerns now have some type of program for the education or training of their employees, albeit they vary tremendously in size and complexity. However, thus far on-the-job courses have not been developed under

When some 80 industrial relations and personnel executives were recently asked by Industrial Relations News to give their reactions to the MDTA, only 11 indicated that their companies planned to participate in the program. (Twenty-four of these firms have retraining programs of their own.) Criticism ranged from cries of governmental interference in an area that should be left to private initiative, complaints of excessive cost, to disapproval of the methods of approaching the problem. On the question "Would you care to express any opinion on the general idea of retraining the unemployed under the MDTA," 24 executives rated the program highly favorable, 18 unfavorable, and 15 pointed to both strengths and weaknesses of the plan.

Mr. Barkin, holding that the fundamental changes in today's economy require a much broader conception of the ways people must be educated than has so far been generally recognized, stated that our society is only at the threshold of an attempt to create institutions for adjustment

to ever increasing technological change. Emphasizing that automation has now "intruded upon mental operations," he finds that the most difficult problem lies with the person whose basic education is so limited that he is not useful in the labor market. (More than 15 percent of the men accepted for retraining under the retraining provisions of the ARA through June 3 had less than 9 years of schooling, and a recent survey of the unemployed in Illinois revealed that less than two-thirds had gone further than grade school.)

Asserting that unless industrial relations are subjected to less tension than they are today and unless management and labor work for policies which result in full employment, our adjustment problems will not be solved to any extent by private means, much as we would prefer it that way. He took the position that our manpower problems require comprehensive governmental action on education, training, employment services and relocation of workers.

"THE INFORMATION EXPLOSION" and the lack of creative satisfaction in today's jobs make necessary a new understanding of occupations and occupational training, Charles R. DeCarlo, director of education at International Business Machines Corp., told the training directors' meeting. Using as his text the development of training and retraining programs necessitated at IBM by the conversion of its products from the use of mechanical systems to electronic tubes to solid state materials within one decade, Mr. DeCarlo suggested some philosophy for retraining. A major thesis was that a company whose occupational skill needs are shifting has a responsibility not only to its employees who are directly affected but also to the public. A company must study its displaced workers and attempt first to plan for the most difficult group, those that are thought to be untrainable; otherwise the burden is shifted to society at large. Another postulate that

would require reorientation in economic thinking is that jobs should be restructured to take care of the work needs of the company's employees rather than to minimaize the firm's costs as has been traditional.

The role of the government in training and retraining was discussed at the ASTD conference by John P. Walsh, deputy director of the Office of Manpower, Automation, and Training in the U.S. Department of Labor. Some of the early experience with retraining under the ARA will be presented in the December issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The MDTA, described by Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz as "the most significant enactment along with the Trade Expansion Act

of the last several decades," makes it possible to train 400,000 persons during the next 3 years.

THE ASTD CONFERENCE was directed toward all levels of manpower training and education, with some speakers emphasizing the problem of the lack of training and the low level of skills of the unemployed and others evincing more concern about the necessity for keeping management personnel abreast of rapidly changing specialized fields. Centering on management training in a recent speech to the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Yale University Professor Neil W. Chamberlain suggested that management personnel return to the college classroom every 4 or 5 years for periods of 6 months or more to keep abreast of rapidly changing specialized fields. He proposed that we may as reasonably put the fruits of our rising productivity into supporting education as into shorter hours, longer vacations, or more holidays. Broadened to include the whole labor force, this was also the theme of a National Education Association symposium on the educational implications of automation held in Washington, D.C., early in 1962.

The Occupational Structure of U.S. Employment, 1940-60

MAX RUTZICK AND SOL SWERDLOFF*

EDITOR'S NOTE.-Information now becoming available from the 1960 decennial census provides the most comprehensive and detailed occupational statistics on American workers ever collected. This article is the first of two describing the changing occupational structure of the American labor force using these Census data. This one describes the trend of employment among occupational groups and individual occupations for the country as a whole. The second, which is to appear in the January issue, analyzes the comparable State and regional trends and compares the occupational structure of employment in different regions and States.

DATA FROM THE 1960 decennial census substantiate information from other sources-primarily the current population survey of the Bureau of the Census-which indicates that the occupational distribution of employed persons in the United States has undergone a marked shift between 1950 and 1960. In some cases, the changes during the 1950's continued. 1950's continued or accentuated earlier trends. In others, they appeared to mark a slowing down or a change in direction, compared with the 1940-50 employment trends.

Outstanding among the major trends during the 1950's was the much faster growth of whitecollar (professional, managerial, clerical, and sales) than manual (craftsmen, operatives, and laborers) occupations, making 1960 the first decennial census in which white-collar workers outnumbered manual workers. Within both groups, the kinds of occupations requiring the most education and training generally grew most

rapidly; professional workers and foremen, for example. Nevertheless, the service occupations also increased much more rapidly than total employment. At the same time, employment of farm workers (farmers and farm managers, and farm laborers and foremen) and industrial laborers declined. Self-employed managers and proprietors also decreased in number.

Nature of the Decennial Employment Data

The manpower data used in this article were collected as part of the 1960 Census of Population, which began on April 1, 1960, and was largely completed during the first half of April. They are based on information on individuals' occupations which was requested from those in a 25-percent sample of the population. Such information is not available for 4.9 percent of the 64.6 million persons recorded as employed in the 1960 census. In 1950, occupational information was not reported for 1.3 percent of employed persons, and in 1940, 0.9 percent.

The difference between censuses in the size of the "occupation not reported" group is not, however, as great as these figures would indicate. The 1960 employed total includes an estimated 2 million persons for whom no labor force information was reported but who were, on the basis of other relevant information, allocated by the Bureau of the Census to the labor force-nearly all of them to the category "employed, occupation not reported." Under 1950 and 1940 procedures, on the other hand, all persons for whom no labor force information was reported were classified as not in the labor force. (Census Bureau studies suggest that perhaps 500,000 would have been classified as employed with occupation not reported in 1940 and 1950, if an allocation procedure similar to that used in 1960 had been followed.)

For the persons allocated into the employed labor force in 1960, as well as those who were reported as employed but for whom no occupation data were obtained, studies now underway at the Bureau of the Census should make it possible to estimate the broad occupational groupings. In the absence of such information, the analysis of trends between decades in this article is based on the numbers reported in the specified occupations

Of the Division of Manpower and Employment Statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

at each date. Use of this procedure understates somewhat the occupational changes between 1950 and 1960, but it gives the best possible comparisons of relative growth for individual occupations between those 2 years. Moreover, it was believed to be more suitable to compare the change for individual occupations with the change in the total number of employed persons for whom occupations were reported, rather than the total counted as employed; that is, an increase of 10.3 rather than 14.5 percent between 1950 and 1960. The level of occupational employment shown in the 1960 decennial census differs from that based on the Census Bureau's monthly sample survey of the population and published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Monthly Report on the Labor Force. Major sources of noncomparability are differences in questionnaire wording and format, and in the experience, training, and control of the enumerators. Other differences include those in data-processing methods, in statistical weighting procedures, and in sampling variability between the current population survey and the sample of the decennial census (25 percent of the population in 1960). Differences also exist in the time period to which the data relate. There are, however, no differences in the concepts and definitions of labor force activity.

Occupational Employment Trends

Compared with the growth of about 10 percent in total employment shown by decennial census data for persons who reported their occupations, the white-collar worker group increased by nearly 28 percent between 1950 and 1960 and the manual workers increased by less than 6 percent. In 1960, white-collar workers made up 43 percent of employed persons, compared with 39 percent for manual workers. In 1950, the comparable percentages were 37 and 40, and in 1940, 33 and 37. The faster growth of white-collar jobs reflects our continuing technological advances, especially the greater application of scientific findings in industry, the rising demand for educational and medical services, and the growing tendency in all types of enterprises toward more recordkeeping and research. Increased mechanization and the changing industrial structure of our economy actually reduced the importance of blue-collar

workers between 1950 and 1960, in contrast to a small increase between 1940 and 1950.

Professional, Technical, and Kindred Workers. The fastest growing occupational group during the 1950's was the professional, technical, and kindred workers, which increased more than four times as fast as total employment. (See table.) After rising about 47 percent in the 1950's, this group made up 11.8 percent of the employed work force in 1960, compared with 8.8 percent in 1950 and 8.0 percent in 1940. In fact, it was the only major group which increased relatively more in number in the 1950's than in the 1940's.

Within the professional group, the employment of scientific and technical personnel increased much faster than most other categories between 1950 and 1960. Professional engineers, for example, increased in employment by about 64 percent over the decade, with the largest numerical increase among electrical engineers. Among the scientists, fastest growth was shown by physicists and mathematicians. Accompanying the expansion for engineers and scientists was a rapid rise in employment of electrical and electronic and other engineering and physical science technicians. All of these changes reflect the phenomenal growth in expenditures for research and development and for defense and space programs, as well as the increased utilization of scientists, engineers, and technicians by industry, government, and educational institutions.1

Among other professionals, the sharp rise in the number of school-age children produced an exceptionally large increase in the number of elementary and secondary school teachers-about 46 percent between 1950 and 1960. Medical and other health workers increased by about 30 percent over the decade, with the rise for nurses and medical and dental technicians exceeding that for dentists and physicians. Among other large professional groups, social scientists experienced relatively rapid growth and accountants and auditors about the same rate as the average for all professional workers, while lawyers had one of the slowest rates of growth.

1 See "State Government Employment of Scientific and Technical Personnel," "Scientific and Technical Employment in Industry, 1960," and "Scientists and Engineers Employed at Colleges and Universities, 1958," Monthly Labor Review, October 1961, pp. 1100-1104; December 1961, pp. 1344-1349; and January 1962, pp. 37-41.