Job-Related Basic Skills. Job-Related Basic Skills.
Several factors attest to a growing concern about the occupational literacy levels of workers.
These factors include the deficient academic levels of those entering the work force, the changing nature of work in our society, and economic problems resulting from workers' inability to meet the basic skill requirements of the job. Because of the changing nature of work in our society, a higher level of basic skills in reading, writing, and computation is required in the growing occupational areas of high-technology and service industries than is required of workers in the declining areas of farm labor and home child care. Even those jobs not related to high technology are requiring a higher level of basic skills. In the area of computation, employees need to be able to work with decimals, metric measurements, numeric relations, simple linear equations, and problem solving. Although research about the relationship between job performance and basic skills is not definitive, several trends do emerge.