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:
“Three elements go to make up an idea. The first is its intrinsic quality as a feeling. The second is the energy with which it affects other ideas, an energy which is infinite in the here-and-nowness of immediate sensation, finite and relative in the recency of the past. The third element is the tendency of an idea to bring along other ideas with it.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“The small creatures chirp thinly through the dust, through the night.
O mother
What shall I cry?
We demand a committee, a representative committee, a committee of investigation
RESIGN RESIGN RESIGN”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“... 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)
“Sleep, nature’s rest, divine tranquillity,
That brings peace to the mind and chases far
All care; that soothes our breasts by daily toil
Over-wearied, and prepares for labor new.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)