TECHNOLOGY change is resulting in problems of large-scale and permanent unemployment. The demand for blue-collar employees is decreasing, while that of white-collar workers is increasing. Overall, many economies are showing trends of becoming increasingly less labour intensive delinking outout from total employment.

In the USA, blue-collar employment in the manufacturing industry has stagnated since the mid-1970s. Between 1979 and 1989, white-collar employment increased from 0.2 million to 6.7 million. In 1989 the share of manufacturing in the latter was as much as 29 per cent. Currently, the service sector in industrialised countries, from banking to retailing, is also using recruitment freezes, early retirement and layoffs for restructuring -- something the manufacturing industry had adopted a decade ago.