Under conditions of full employment, technological advance would normally make possible an upgrading of the jobs available and an increase in the number of occupations open to job applicants. A large number of American workers are unqualified by education, however, to reap the employment benefits of technological progress. When they have been displaced they find their training inadequate to gain them a new and better job. The problem is further compounded in the displacement of those with a high order of skill acquired over many years. When this skill suddenly becomes obsolete, the worker frequently finds the other job opportunities open to him to be of a lower classification and wage structure. Thus, in some areas, technological displacement actually results in a downgrading of skills. HIGH RATE OF GROWTH A high rate of growth is essential to the successful operation of our innovating economy. An expanding market for new goods and services promotes the generation of new enterprise and employment. Thus, it fosters the mobility of the labor force, encourages employers and their workers to train for new skills and occupations, and provides new job opportunities for those displaced by changes in markets and technology. But in an innovating economy that is growing too slowly, incentives to adapt to change disappear; obsolescence becomes endemic; unemployment becomes chronic and persistent; local economies stagnate; and poverty and deprivation, wherever they exist, take root and perpetuate the maladjustments which hold the economy in general back from optimum performance. This is the situation which has come to prevail in the United States since the end of the Korean war. FLOOD OF NEW, YOUNG WORKERS Our failure to meet the Manpower Revolution on its own terms has been seriously compounded by an explosion in the growth of the labor force. The high birth rate of the post-World War II years is now flooding the labor market with a million more new jobseekers each year than in 1959. This rapid influx of young workers will continue at least until the end of the next decade. A significant percentage of these young people are inadequately prepared to compete for jobs in the modern labor market. UNSKILLED LABOR Labor demand in today's economy generally calls for a higher level of basic educational skills than in the past. Those in the labor force who, through social and economic disadvantage, do not possess the requisite basic education necessary to qualify for jobs under these conditions cannot find work. Thus, the Nation finds itself with a surplus of workers, young and old, who, through no fault of their own, cannot qualify for the jobs available. POCKETS OF POVERTY The ill effects of poor economic performance tend to be felt regionally and geographically. Whenever there has been specialization in the extractive industries of agriculture, forestry, and mining; wherever there are large concentrations of obsolescent industrial facilities; wherever there has been inadequate social capital invested in the labor force and the environment in general-there the ill effects of the Manpower Revolution have been felt most strongly: the central cities, Appalachia, the Deep South, the extreme upper Midwest, the Indian reservations-here is where the manpower revolution has passed millions of Americans by, leaving them without employment and without the means to assure themselves the right to qualify for a good job even if they could find one. Concerned that the United States is not prepared at present to cope with the Manpower Revolution in all of its ramifications, the Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower a year ago initiated a comprehensive investigation of the Nation's manpower challenge with the intention of preparing proposals for a full employment and effective manpower policy. This report contains those recommendations. JOSEPH S. CLARK, Chairman, Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower. TOWARD FULL EMPLOYMENT: PROPOSALS FOR A COMPREHENSIVE EMPLOYMENT AND MANPOWER POLICY FOR THE UNITED STATES Report and Recommendations by the Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, U.S. Senate, April 1964 I. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY A. PURPOSE AND EXTENT OF HEARINGS The objectives of the Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower, in opening its extensive investigations of the Nation's manpower and employment problems in late May 1963, were set forth on the first day of hearings by the chairman: The most urgent domestic problem before the Nation today is unemployment— He stated. But unemployment is a symptom of a broader and more fundamental challenge; it is a part of a Manpower Revolution. We are moving from a blue-collar to a white-collar economy; one which offers fewer and fewer opportunities for the unskilled and the uneducated. We have a paradox of 4 million unemployed on one hand and severe shortages of the manpower needed to run our highly complex technology on the other. As technology replaces human labor and the skill needs of society are elevated, a whole new set of economic, political, social, and educational challenges are posed. It is these challenges which the subcommittee will explore in the coming months. We shall be just as much concerned about manpower shortages as we are concerned over the legions of the unemployed, convinced that the solution to one is part of the answer to the other. We have three principal aims in this undertaking: First, through our hearings, studies, and reports we will attempt to inform ourselves, the Congress, and the Nation, of the full dimensions of the manpower challenge. Second, we will serve as a watchdog over present Federal manpower and employment programs and attempt to determine how well they are operating, what their deficiencies may be, and how they can be corrected through better legislation and administration. Third, we will prepare new legislation wherever we find the need. If the subject for needed new legislation is outside the subcommittee's jurisdiction, as it well may be, the matter will be referred with recommendations to the appropriate committees of the Senate. Our purpose is to take a look for the first time at the total problem. It is our hope that in doing so we can help break the Congress and the Nation away from a piecemeal approach to manpower problems which can only fail to deal with the manpower revolution on its own terms. The subcommittee held 56 days of hearings. Over 150 expert witnesses from government, the universities, management, and labor appeared. The investigation explored the demographic, technological, and economic changes underway in the Nation's labor markets, appraised the capacity of existing employment and manpower programs and policies to meet these developments, examined the relationship between economic growth and employment, surveyed the special employment problems of disadvantaged groups in society, heard testimony concerning the efforts of labor and management to ease the adjustment to technological and other changes through collective bargaining, studied the employment and manpower implications of the defense and space effort, and considered measures for adjusting to the employment impact of potential reductions in defense expenditures. In addition to the hearings, the subcommittee's staff has thoroughly reviewed published materials relative to these questions and prepared a number of committee prints containing selected materials pertinent to the subcommittee's deliberations. From these efforts the subcommittee has developed the following conclusions and recommendations: B. FINDINGS (1) The Nation is experiencing a complex Manpower Revolution engendered by accelerated labor force growth, dramatic shifts in the composition of the labor force, increasingly rapid technological change, rising educational and skill requirements, shifting consump tion patterns, geographical relocation of industry, the development of new and substitute products, the depletion of some natural resources, and other forces." (2) Because many of these profound changes occurred in a period of slow growth, the adjustment process has been even more painful than it otherwise might have been. The rate of growth has risen somewhat since 1961 but it is still considerably below that necessary to absorb the combined pressures of labor force growth and productivity increases and bring about full employment. (3) The failure to recognize and meet this Manpower Revolution forthrightly has wasted human resources through unemployment and underemployment, reduced potential living standards for all, limited the Nation's ability to meet its domestic and international commitments, increased pressures on an already inadequate educational system, denied economic opportunity to millions of our citizens, and increased the difficulty in solving such social ills as delinquency, crime, racial discrimination, and poverty. (4) Substantial progress has been made in recent years in "beefing up? older programs, developing new ones, and improving mechanisms for the formulation of employment and manpower policy. Nevertheless, significant gaps in both policy and programs still exist. Major action is required before the Nation can be said to have an effective and comprehensive policy for full employment and efficient use of its precious manpower, C. Recommendations To meet the converging forces of the Manpower Revolution and hasten the development of comprehensive employment and manpower programs and policies, the subcommittee recomiends the following: PULL EMPLOYMENT POLICY 1. The Employment Act of 1946 should be nude effective by estab lishing standards of minimum economic performance and providing |