ber both of the highly skilled positions and of the entirely unskilled jobs. In the place of some of the unskilled workers and skilled craftsmen, there may be expected workers of the machine-tender type, who are skilled at repetitive processes dealing with a very small fragment of the entire productive enterprise.

Table 20 shows the percentage of gainfully employed workers in the United States in 1910, 1920, and 1930, classified in each of the major socio-economic groups. It will be noted from this tabulation that the percentage of unskilled workers has been decreasing, while the percentage of semiskilled workers has been increasing slightly. The greatest increases are in the classifications of clerks and kindred workers and in the professional group. The percentage of farm owners and tenants has been decreasing sharply, but nonfarm proprietors have been increasing.

TABLE 20.-Percentage distribution of gainful workers in the United States by socio-economic group, 1910, 1920, and 1930 1

1 Adapted from Bradford F. Kimball, Changes in the Occupational Pattern of New York State, New York State Education Department, Educational Research Studies, 1937, No. 2 (Albany: 1937), Table 7, p. 38. Data refer to continental United States only.

These trends have important implications for the program of vocational education. The general indication is that, although the demands for vocational education will show pronounced shifts in the future, the total amount of training needed for occupational efficiency is almost certain to increase.

Need for an

Occupational Outlook Service

The tabulation in Table 20 indicates in a general way certain broad shifts in occupational distribution that are of importance for the future program of vocational education. A much more detailed analysis is needed, however, to plan wisely the program of occupational preparation. The organization of the information that is needed for this purpose might take the form of an occupational outlook service. Information needed.-Intelligent planning for a program of vocational education should be based on a knowledge of the occupational situation throughout the country. The specific items on which information should be available for an occupational outlook service are as follows:

1. A classified list of all the types of jobs at which people work in the United States.

2. The pre-entry requirements for each of these classified jobs, in terms of training, personal characteristics, and experience.

3. The number of persons in the country engaged at each of these types of jobs.

4. The number of new entrants to each type of job that are required each year.

5. A forecast of the probable average number of new recruits needed in each of these types of jobs for each of the next 5 years, to be obtained by analysis of economic, technological, and other factors that would influence employment in the various types of enterprise.

6. The number of persons now in training for each of the classified types of jobs.

Information of the foregoing six types should be available not only for the country as a whole, but separately for each State and for the larger population centers in each State. From these factors a forecast or occupational outlook could be constructed which would be of immense value to the program of vocational education.

The

The service would be somewhat similar to the crop outlook now provided by the Department of Agriculture. establishment of an occupational outlook is no more visionary

than the establishment of the crop outlook was when it was first advocated, some 20 years ago. The task of preparing the occupational outlook would in some respects be more difficult than that of preparing the crop outlook, for the number of classifiable types of jobs is very large compared with the number of different kinds of crops to be reported

In other respects, the occupational outlook service might be a simpler matter than the crop forecast, for the controlling factors are probably fewer in number, and being mostly man-made, should be more readily predictable.

Difficulties of developing a service.-The immediate difficulty in the development of an occupational outlook service is the unavailability of the necessary data. In none of the six types of information previously suggested as needed for occupational forecasting are adequate data now available.

One of the items of information that is basic to the occupational outlook service is a list of well-defined and classified jobs, describing the vocations in which people are employed in the United States. The number of such jobs is very large and their identification and description correspondingly difficult. The United States census of 1930 utilized approximately 17,500 occupational designations. The United States Employment Service is now engaged in the process of compiling an occupational dictionary to standardize as far as possible the job designations used in the placement service. Up to the present this agency has cataloged and described some 18,000 different occupations. It is estimated that the total number, when the list is completed, will be somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000. Although the list of occupations. which individually employ as many as one-tenth of one percent of the employed workers of the country would not be very long, the large number of occupations in which relatively small percentages of the population are engaged employ in the aggregate a large number of persons and are of great importance to the general welfare.

Even after a satisfactory classification of occupations is made, an analysis of the training requirements for each type of job is a large undertaking. Although a beginning has been made on such a project by the United States Employ

ment Service, at the rate the work is now proceeding it will be many years before the desired information is available. One of the immediate needs is for the early completion of this important file of information. The kinds of jobs and the training requirements for each are likely to shift from time to time, so that when once the file of information is completed there must be constant effort expended to keep it up to date. At present there is no authoritative tabulation of the number of young people preparing for each classifiable type of occupation. Such compilations as exist are fragmentary, inaccurate, and are usually not set up in accordance with a suitable classification of occupations; they are therefore not particularly useful for the purposes of an occupational outlook service.

Perhaps the area in which the least information is available is that of the present and prospective needs of the economic order for workers in various occupations. At present the United States Employment Service has some current data on labor shortages and surpluses, and is able to furnish some information with regard to current conditions in a few of the major lines of employment. This service is not, however, sufficient to forecast whether or not there will be shortages in any given occupation over a period of a year's time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has done much by way of compiling information on the labor situation and current economic conditions. An effective forecast of future conditions, however, requires much more extensive economic information than so far has been mobilized. The difficulties involved in any long-range forecasting of economic conditions are well recognized, and there is no assurance that this problem can ever be completely solved. It should be possible, however, to make estimates on a reasonably intelligent basis that would represent an improvement over the present lack of such information.

The recently published report of the Subcommittee on Technology of the National Resources Committee makes the following recommendation regarding the preparation of information of a type that would be useful in developing an occupational outlook service:

A special case of the influence of invention is technological unemployment. It is recommended that a joint committee be formed from the Department of Labor, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Mines, Interstate Commerce Commission, Social Security Board, and the Works Progress Administration with such other cooperation as may be needed, for the purposes of keeping abreast with technological developments and ascertaining and noting the occupations and industries which are likely to be affected by imminent technological changes and the extent to which these inventions are likely to result in unemployment. It is recommended that such information be made available through the appropriate departments to the industry and labor likely to be affected.7

It may be suggested that there are few areas of Federal statistical service so greatly in need of improvement as the collection of occupational statistics. Occupational planning will probably continue to be extremely ineffective until a much better foundation is provided in the census data. Perhaps the census of 1940 may be the earliest opportunity to secure great improvement, and it is not too early to begin the planning of the necessary modifications.

Value of a service. The publication of the data concerning the occupational outlook would provide a most valuable service. Only by the accumulation of such information can vocational guidance be given effectively. The oncoming generation of workers will distribute themselves intelligently among the available occupations only if they are provided with information showing the relative demands in the various types of employment. To be most effective in this respect, the occupational outlook forecasting service would have to be of a rather long-range character, since pupils who are making choices as to their training need information as to the probable employment conditions from 2 to 5 years in advance.

The occupational outlook service would not operate in any way to coerce any person to engage in any occupation, nor to deny individuals the right to choose the occupation they wish. The data would be merely a guide by which the individual could choose most wisely and could be advised most intelligently with regard to his own personal choice of an occupation.

'National Resources Committee, Technological Trends and National Policy, Including the Social Implications of New Inventions (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1937), P. viii.