Relative Demand of Skilled Labor
One of the factors that increases the relative demand for skilled labor is attributed to the introduction of computers. In order to operate computers, workers must build up their human capital in order to learn how such a piece of machinery works. Thus, there is an increase in the demand for skilled labor. In addition to the technological change of computers, the introduction of electricity also replaces man power (unskilled labor) which, in turn, also shifts out the demand curve.
Technology, however, is not the only factor. Trade and the effects of globalization also play a role in affecting the relative demand of skilled labor. One case includes a developed country purchasing imports from a developing country, which in turn replaces products made with domestic low-skilled labor. This, in turn, decreased the demand for low-skilled workers. Both of these factors, thus, increase the wages of highly skilled workers.
Read more about this topic: Skill (labor)
Famous quotes containing the words relative, demand, skilled and/or labor:
“And since the average lifetime—the relative longevity—is far greater for memories of poetic sensations than for those of heartbreaks, since the very long time that the grief I felt then because of Gilbert, it has been outlived by the pleasure I feel, whenever I wish to read, as in a sort of sundial, the minutes between twelve fifteen and one o’clock, in the month of May, upon remembering myself chatting ... with Madame Swann under the reflection of a cradle of wisteria.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“The laws of custom make our [returning a visit] necessary. O how I hate this vile custom which obliges us to make slaves of ourselves! to sell the most precious property we boast, our time;—and to sacrifice it to every prattling impertinent who chooses to demand it!”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“... it must be obvious that in the agitation preceding the enactment of [protective] laws the zeal of the reformers would be second to the zeal of the highly paid night-workers who are anxious to hold their trade against an invasion of skilled women. To this sort of interference with her working life the modern woman can have but one attitude: I am not a child.”
—Crystal Eastman (1881–1928)
“What more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more … a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from labor the bread it has earned.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)