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The task of this paper is to examine the changes taking place in the skill‐employment mix of 13 industry sub‐groups within the British engineering industry and to propose a suitable projection technique for manpower forecasting.

Skill shortages have been a recurring problem and are likely to re‐emerge as the UK economy recovers from recession. Presents evidence from the Skill Needs survey 1990, close to the peak of the last cycle. It shows that different measures of shortage can give different results with quite different policy implications. In particular, it demonstrates that occupations associated with the most intensive skill shortages within establishments are generally quite different from occupations where the shortages are the most widespread across industry.

The Labour Force Survey is a rich data source for investigation of the factors influencing unemployment. The initial results are based on a linear probability model. They highlight some of the influences on job search, the choice of methods, the intensity and the duration of search. The probability of search is positively related to claimancy status and is higher for males and for those in younger‐age and shorter‐duration unemployment categories. Family responsibilities had quite different effects on male and female job search probabilities, except in the case of single parents. The intensity of search was noticeably higher in males, for claimants, for younger‐age groups and shorter‐duration categories. Reliance on job centres fell significantly with age, tended to be higher amongst the less well qualified and lower social classes. With the exception of Northern Ireland, individuals in higher unemployment areas made greater use of job centres. All of the results were duration‐related: the probability and intensity of job search fell with the duration of unemployment; the reliance on job centres increased with duration.

This brief article pulls together a number of general themes. In particular, it looks at a number of influences on the extent and nature of skill shortages, including: the growth of the economy; technological change; organisational change; international competition; changes in industrial structure; increased demands for a more formally qualified workforce; training; demographic changes; labour market flexibility; wastage rates, retention and recruitment; movement to a Single European Market. Finally it provides a number of more general comments which, in essence, serve to highlight the central role played by training.

The principal aim of this article is to provide some insights into the role of economics in modelling labour demands. The impression that we have built up over time is that, while many of the existing economic theories have a considerable amount to offer in understanding the demand for labour, these theories are still in their infancy. They are generated almost entirely from within the subject rather than in co‐operation with other disciplines, and they are often tested at a macro level using econometric techniques rather than at the micro level using case study material. While much of the statistical testing at an aggregate level has been useful in confirming (and even on occasion refuting) the existing body of theory, many of the more interesting theoretical break‐throughs in economics generally have resulted from detailed knowledge of the researcher about the operation of particular firms.

The post‐war period has been characterised by a persistent and substantial expansion in the employment of women. At the same time, women have become increasingly protected in employment by a legislative framework that includes the Equal Pay Act (1970), the Social Security and Pensions Act (1975) and the Sex Discrimination Act (1975). Nevertheless, a number of vestiges of discrimination under the law still remain, such as the special treatment of women with regard to the length and timing of their paid employment. Despite the attempts to remove discrimination by legislation, there remains a considerable groundswell of opinion that there are still substantial differences in the treatment of women vis‐a‐vis men in employment. One continuing concern is the tendency of the organisation of tasks to polarise into men‐only and women‐only jobs. As a result, it has been argued that the situation approximates to a dual labour market, with women being funnelled into the secondary labour market. Complex, interacting forces are at play that make the estimation of statistical models of the existing distribution of employment by sex (from which evidence of sex discrimination might be sought) extremely difficult. A potentially more rewarding approach is to examine those jobs that employers believe to be of the men‐only or women‐only types. Questions of this type were included in a recent survey of employers across all sectors of employment in British industry. While the formulation of such questions and the interpretation of the results are associated with important problems, nevertheless, the survey provides a useful impression of the size and nature of the barriers faced by women in their search for employment opportunities and the manner in which these barriers may be broken down.

The most highly qualified occupational group, comprising individuals who work primarily in activities involving high levels of technical and organisational skills, is focused on. It is a group which, overall, has shown remarkable growth in recent years. Certain specialisms, such as IT skills, experienced relatively buoyant labour markets which even transcended the effects of the last major recession. In the main, such skills were associated with unusual demand conditions, caused, for example, by the diffusion of microelectronics and by the changes in company organisation and management. Since the recession, specific skill shortages have been transformed into more general shortfalls. Demand for individuals with high levels of formal education and training is expected to continue growing. Supply is not expected to keep pace, a situation which will be aggravated by the downturn in the youth cohort. There are other significant events on the horizon which make the market outcome more uncertain, such as the movement to the Single European Market in 1992, although none of these factors seems likely to reverse the conclusion of persistent shortages.

While a great deal of information has been accumulated in recent years about the role of women in employment, by the end of the 1970s considerable gaps in our understanding still remained. The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) were instrumental in isolating and highlighting a large number of quite diverse areas where existing knowledge was deficient. In an attempt to rectify this situation, the EOC/SSRC Joint Panel funded a major new survey of ‘Women and Work’, which was undertaken by IFF Research Ltd. during 1979. Given our research interests, the authors were commissioned to analyse the results of this survey insofar as they relate to work patterns, remuneration, facilities and opportunities, with particular regard to the different experiences of men and women.

Considers the optimal training decisions of firms and individuals, and provides a number of reasons why there may be underinvestment in the market for training. Reflects on the individual′s decision to invest in training in the context of dynamic labour supply theories. This is combined with a model of the firm′s decision‐making process to provide a “market for training” in which wage‐training‐employment contracts are determined.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.