75-04-A1
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Unemployment # 1
TranscriptIs a worker with a particular skill really unemployed if somewhere in the land an employer has a job for such a worker? I'll be right back. A while back on these broadcasts I talked about unemployment and the way the government counts, or perhaps I should say miscounts, the unemployed. My intention was not to underplay the desperate situation of a person willing to work, needing work and unable to find it. the point I was making was that the percentage figures given to us, often in scare headlines, from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was inaccurate, misleading and of no help whatever to those looking for work or companies looking for workers. Demand for certain job skills is not evenly distributed across our land. Unemployed workers in one area are matched by unfilled jobs in other areas. There's little or no communication between employers and vocational schools as to which skills are in demand and which are in surplus. An item appeared recently in a national magazine telling of the shortage in American industry of skilled metal workers. The prediction was made that in five years or less, metalworking companies will be forced to cut back operations because they'll be unable to hire machinist tool makers or die makers. One company operating in six states has a chronic problem right now. Most of its skilled employees are age 60, the youngest is 40. At a half dozen locations they're in a constant search for personnel. In one plant, an opening for a tool maker has gone unfilled for two years. You and I as consumers are paying part of the price for this shortage in the form of poor quality workmanship because managers have to fill the gap with inadequately trained workers. Now these aren't menial jobs without a future. Tool-making is creative with new challenges daily and it pays well. Good tool and die makers are earning up to $18,000 a year and many go into business for themselves. Whether earning power is unlimited and yet a survey of vocational training facilities in one state found 105 recent graduates in cosmetology, 181 clerical—tool and die makers 0. The National Federation of Independent Business which includes most of those employing 500 less workers of all types reports that more than one-fifth of its member firms have unfilled jobs and one-third of those have been unfilled for more than six months. Half of the businesses with job openings have been advertising in the papers and using employment agencies. The pattern of labor shortages varies, verifying the fact that labor surplus and labor shortage is not evenly distributed. For example in the west and south central states, including Texas, 32% of the businesses have job openings and 40% of these have been unfilled for six months or longer. The article mentioned California as having fewer job openings and suggested that this reflects the tightening of welfare standards and closer supervision of unemployment benefits in California. And maybe that tells us something. One thing, sure, it indicates that we need more information than just a misleading overall percentage figure of how many people the labor department says would like jobs. Instead why not a periodic census of job skills, spelling out the industries and locations where workers are in surplus and those where jobs are going begging. That way both the job seekers and the worker seekers could get together a lot faster. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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