Recruitment to Skilled Trades

Gertrude Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136254918
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This is Volume XIII of eighteen in a series on the Sociology of Work and Organisation. First published in 1957, this is a study looks at the changes in the recruitment into skilled work after the beginning of the nineteenth century when the usual method of entry to trade and industry in general was through apprenticeship.

III

THE METHOD OF THE ENQUIRY

THE aim of the present enquiry is to try to find the answers to a number of questions. First and foremost, what are the reasons for the continuing shortage of skilled workers? Is this due, for example, to the unwillingness of some firms in each industry to take their quota of training responsibility, or are firms restricted in the number of trainees they can admit, and if so, is this number inadequate to meet the needs of the industry? Is the difficulty perhaps due to faulty selection so that a considerable number of those who begin apprenticeship fail to stay the course and leave before becoming qualified? What proportion of those who serve their full term proceed later to some form of work other than that for which they have qualified? During the post-war period it is known that wage differentials between skilled and semi-skilled workers have materially narrowed, and in some cases the semi-skilled worker on piece rates can earn actually more than the skilled craftsman. Has this narrowing of differentials reduced the attractions of apprenticeship with the result that the numbers applying are insufficient, or does it induce skilled workers, once qualified, to change over to semi-skilled jobs?

How could the shortage be reduced? Would it be possible to shorten the period of training? Could apprenticeship be opened to suitable adults employed in semi-skilled operations? Gould apprentices be trained for more than one craft so that with a more mobile and flexible labour force bottlenecks in a particular branch of production might be prevented?

Answers to these questions demand investigations along two lines. There is first the factual situation. What in practice happens? Are agreed schemes being implemented, and if not, where does the deficiency show itself? Are the agreed schemes inadequate to meet the need, and if not, what changes in them would be technically possible? The second, and in one sense the more fundamental problem, is concerned with the way in which people in the industry look at the matter. If it were technically possible to train an apprentice in, say, three or four years instead of five, are there difficulties i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• THE SOCIOLOGY OF WORK AND ORGANIZATION
• Full Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• I THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
• II A NEW DEAL
• III THE METHOD OF THE ENQUIRY
• IV THE SCHEMES IN OPERATION
• V FORMAL TECHNICAL EDUCATION
• VI THE FUTURE
• APPENDIX: (Questionnaire sent to Engineering Firms
• INDEX