War Impacts and Post‐War Readjustments*

Abstract

The war is affecting occupational trends in many ways. First, it is causing an extensive industrial, occupational, and geographical shifting in the patterns of labor demand and employment opportunities. The workers that will be in greatest demand during the coming year are aeronautical engineers, naval architects, marine engineers, chemists, chemical engineers, metallurgists, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, industrial engineers, production managers, physicists, personnel managers, employment managers, machinists, welders, sheet metal workers, ship fitters, lathe operators, tool makers, milling machine operators, riveters, and airplane assemblers.The war is also causing extensive changes in occupational content through job dilution and the break‐up of skills. Workers are being trained in six months for segments of skills that normally require several years to acquire. The average per capita skill content for the labor force as a whole is increasing and workers are competing at higher levels of skills. While they cannot be classed as fully trained or skilled at occupations to which they are up‐graded, they are, nevertheless, moving up the skill ladder.