Room Above the Bottom

While the President of the U.S. last week toured the Appalachian areas of poverty, bringing attention once more to the fact that unemployment as well as prosperity is a major fact in the land, statistics showed that the paradox of the employment situation is becoming even more pronounced.

In the past year, the thriving econ omy has generated 1,500,000 new jobs, but only 1,200,000 new workers have entered the market -- thus forcing down joblessness from 5.8% of the work force to 5.4% last month. There are many parts of the nation in which the real problem is not how to find jobs, but how to find people to do all the work available. With an 8,000,000 car year ahead, Detroit expects to have 13,500 jobs going begging during the next twelve months. Farm-equipment makers are enjoying such a good year that International Harvester and John Deere are scouring the countryside for 50 miles around their Midwestern plants looking for skilled and semiskilled workers. In a Government-watched economy that is ever more conscious of bookkeeping, the young accountant is replacing the young engineer as the prize catch, and many firms are busy raiding college campuses to pick up accounting majors, often offering $600 a month to begin.

The overriding factor in the unemployment situation is that virtually all jobs now being created are for the skilled and the educated; of the 1,500,000 jobs gained in the past year, only about 400,000 went to blue-collar workers. The big gains came in the service fields, which in general require much higher education levels. This uneven situation has existed for a long time, but it has clearly become even more aggravated by prosperity. Just to hold at the present level of unemployment, the economy not only must generate at least 3,500,000 new jobs every year for the rest of the decade, but upgrade the skills of the lower segment of the work force.

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