We are no longer in the depths of a general depression. Not the majority of us. But there are a great many who are not too enthusiastic about their present conditions or their prospects for the future. The older worker often finds himself in difficulty. Automation is causing layoffs. Farm population is being reduced. The primary industries employ fewer people. Too few of our young people, particularly young men, are able to find employment.2

In Pigott's view, the source of the problem was a growing gap between the level of education and training of the workforce and the demands of business and industry:

There is real reason to believe that our present predicament lies ... in a lack of correspondence between the job demands of trade and industry and the number of workers qualified and available for the jobs.3

Basic Education

He argued that many workers faced economic hardship because they lacked sufficient basic education and Job training:

The solid core of unemployed people continues to rise and we seem to have three or four hundred thousand people who are outside of our usable workforce because they lack knowledge and skills necessary to fit into the needs of a technological age.4

As evidence, he pointed out that "more than half of the registrants for unemployment insurance have only a primary school education".5

Pigott's solution was to provide general education and job training to adults with employment problems. As for those who lack even a primary school education, "It will first be necessary to give them an 'adult' course in elementary education".6 He went on to state:

We know that there is great need for schemes to raise the general level of education in order to give the flexibility so necessary in the world of technological change.7

Overall, Pigott stressed the need for workers to adapt to what he clearly implies are inescapable consequences of technological change:

It is generally accepted that the rapidity of technological change demands great flexibility on the part of the work force ... As technological change increases and automation becomes more common, more and more adults will need retraining .... Educational programs must be related to the needs of business, industry and agriculture.8