IS THERE A SHORTAGE OF SKILLED LABOUR?
| Date | 01 July 1982 |
| Author | J. M. Oliver,J. R. Turton |
| Published date | 01 July 1982 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1982.tb00097.x |
IS
THERE
A
SHORTAGE
OF
SKILLED
LABOUR?’
J.M.
OLIVER
AND
J.R.
TURTON*
‘When demand and supply are spoken
of
in
relation to one another,
it
is
necessary that the
markets to which they refer
should
be the same.’
POLICY proposals resulting from alleged shortages
of
skilled lahour are dependent on
categorisations implicit in the term ‘skilled occupation’ and
ow
Purpose is to
investigate these categorisations.
Alfred Marshall
THE
CONVENTIONAL
VIEW
OF
SKILL SHORTAGES
There appears to be
a
widespread consensus that the term ‘skill’ has a clear meaning
and that ‘skill shortages’ can be resolved by policies which will lead (a) to more
workers taking up training programmes and (b) to skilled workers staying
in
their
occupations. Clearly we cannot challenge the assertion that there is
a
shortage
of
some
skilled workers in the sense that firms can experience a persistent unfilled vacancy in
occupations conventionally regarded as skilled. It can be questioned, however, (i) that
the concept
of
skill is unambiguous, and (ii) that different labour market agents mean
the same thing when using a given occupational term.
In our view, the belief that the labour market is failing to resolve a shortage
of
skilled labour presupposes that the shortage
is
one of cognitive ability and manual
dexterity. But this
is
only one
of
the aspects
of
the term ‘skill’. This is the technicist
concept of skill which, it will become clear, normally co-exists with a behavioural
concept of skill. The latter focuses on the social behaviour
of
workers within the
context
of
the
firm.
The ‘failure’
of
the labour market
to
operate may be a puzzle only
if the technicist definition
is
relied upon,
for
that definition perceives the shortage as
one of ‘abilities that can be supplied in response to a wage change’. However, it is
possible that the skill shortages generally complained of are mainly
of
the behavioural
kind. Where behavioural considerations are paramount, supply may not be increased
at all easily by market processes because stocks
of
the skill-attributes in question may
not exist and may not readily be augmented.
If much
of
the perceived skill shortage
is
of the behavioural kind then the problem
takes
a
new and less obvious form and the public policies based on concepts
of
technicist skill shortages are open to challenge.
THE
NATURE
OF
SKILL
OF
WHICH
THERE
IS A
REPORTED SHORTAGE
A
series of hour-long interviews was held with managers responding to a
preliminary letter. There were sixty-three interviews with firms employing fifty
or
more staff and ten interviews with smaller firms. The interview started with questions
about labour shortages and recruitment problems and policies (wage rises, job
re-specification and
so
on) and then proceeded to questions about skill shortages. By
getting these managers to discuss recruitment policies we hoped to be able
to
identify
their underlying assumptions about skills and occupations. (Firms were not, of course,
*
Head
of
Economics Academic
Group
and Head
of
Sociology Academic Group, The Hatfield
Polytechnic.
19s
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