Omaha daily bee., 1895-10-06
DEMAND ron EXPERT LABOR.
Scarcity OF First-CInss skilled work
men In NRrious Industries.

The Iron Age and other authorities re-
port an unusual demand just at present for
frst-class workmen in the iron trade, and
the same demand is said to be as pressing
In other Industries. There seems to be more
in this demand than the chronic call for
people who can and will do work that is
better than fairly good, and 1t seems to exist
because of somewhat unusual conditions in
the Industrial world. or course the familiar
need for workmen who are really skilled and
capable of doing the best work is at the
bottom OF the present emergency, for IL 1t
were not that excellent mechanics are always
scarce this emergency would not exist, at
least not to the same extent that 1t is de-
scribed as existing at present. The labor
market, says the Springfield Republican, is al
ways Hooded with ordinary workmen, Of the
Kind who can do one or more things fairly
well, but nothing excellently, and there are
always plenty of men to be hired who are
JACKS at all trades, but masters of none.
This Is the case all through this busy world
thu professions are as full of half-qualiied
men as are the trades, and excellent clerks
ana statesmen are as scarce as thoroughly
equipped workmen in the trades. Wherever
one looks there is a dearth Of entirely COM
petent persons, who are experts in their
chosen line. so that 1t is almost as hard to
find a ffst-class motorman for a street car, or
a mechanic who knows all there is to know
about his trade, as a satisfactory foreman or
head of a department.
When the great mass OF the unemployed,
even during such slack times as we have Just
passed through, is analysed and classified, 1t
Is usually found that thoroughly skilled work
men form but a small minority of the whole,
and that the incompetent and half-competent
make up the large majority. This fact Is
easily explained; 1t is always hard for the in
competent to get employment, and, as a rule,
other things being equal. the degree of. COM
petence determines the chances Of work, and
the wages. In times when it becomes neces-
sary for a manufacturer to reduce his force
he dismisses the least useful, and therefore
the least profitable first, and keeps his most
useful and most profitable men as long as
possible. When his factory is again started
the process is reversed, and the most com
petent are first set at work; consequently the
incompetent suffer the most, in loss of work
as well as. poor wages. Conditions which
they cannot control are compelling manu-
facturers to keep the quality Of their en-
plGyes, so far is competence is concerned, as
high as possible. In every business, no
matter how crude the product, or how nearly
automatic the machinery employed, there Is o
standard OF competence among the employees
below which the employer cannot safely go,
and this standard is constantly growing
higher.
Competition is forcing every manufacturer
to make the labor he pays for as productive
as possible, precisely as it compels the use
Oh the most efficient machinery. and it Is
rapidly becoming understood that intelligent
labor is the most productive. Where com
plicated and highly productive machinery Is
used, a higher class of superintendent be-
comes imperative, either in the machine
tender, or of the foreman or head of the de-
partment. Conditions are therefore working
two ways, to make it increasingly harder for
the incompetent and incapable to find employ
ment, and to reduce the wages or earnings
OF this class, and to magnify the demand
for experts in all branches, and increase
their recompense. There is getting to be less
and less chance for the poor workman, and
less demand for the fairly good one, while
the need for the master of their trades in
every art and profession is daily more i'm
perative. With the demand for skilled
workers has come an equal demand for a
higher degree of skill than ever before, and
for a higher degree of Intelligence. The new
conditions demand that the skilled workman
shall be able to use his brains as well as his
hands, and be able to adapt means to ends
with more ingenuity, or at least a better
understanding Of the relations Of the ma
terials with which he deals than was ever
required before. If a mechanic today aspires
he can only do 1t by the mastery of techni-
c~alities and scientific principles of which our
fathers never dreamed.
The special causes given for the scarcity
Of skilled workmen in the iron working
trades, apply to those trades above. 1t may
be true that the former employees of rolling
mills and machine shops, who were made idle
by the hard times of a year ago, have largely
found other employment, and will not return
to their old trades. Even IL this were the
case 1t would not alter the fact that with
all these scattered workmen back in their
former places the demand for skilled and ex.
pert labor would be by no means supplied
nor can 1t be supplied save by the training
Of men to make good this deficit.