Problem Statement

A company is undergoing a number of changes which will affect its manpower requirements in future years.[6] Owing to the installation of new machinery, fewer unskilled but more skilled and semi-skilled workers will be required. In addition to this a downturn in trade is expected in the next year which will reduce the need for workers in all categories. The estimated manpower requirements for the next three years are as follows:

 

Unskilled

Semi-skilled

Skilled

Current strength

2000

1500

1000

Year 1

1000

1400

1000

Year 2

500

2000

1500

Year 3

0

2500

2000

The company wishes to decide its policy with regard to the following over the next three years:

  1. Recruitment

  2. Retraining

  3. Redundancy

  4. Short-time working.

There is a natural wastage of labour. A fairly large number of workers leave during their first year. After this the rate is much smaller. Taking this into account, the wastage rates can be taken as below:

 

Unskilled

Semi-skilled

Skilled

Less than one year’s service

25%

20%

10%

More than one year’s service

10%

5%

5%

There has been no recent recruitment and all workers in the current labour force have been employed for more than one year.



[6] Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons Ltd. (Williams 1999, pp. 234–236).