Remarks Upon Signing Order Establishing the President's Committee on Manpower.

Members of the Cabinet, Members of the Congress, ladies and gentlemen:

Full employment for our workers, increasing production for our industry, enlarged opportunity for our citizens are all among the fundamental goals of our national economy. The realization of these goals and our greatness as a nation rest today, as it has in the past, on the wise use of the skills of our people.

For this reason, I am today establishing the President's Committee on Manpower under the chairmanship of the very able Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz. This committee will examine our manpower needs from time to time and improve our techniques for appraising needs and potential resources. It will study the impact of federal programs on our demand for manpower. It will formulate recommendations to insure the wise and full use of all of our manpower resources now and in the years to come.

Congress very wisely in the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 made the Secretary of Labor my manpower adviser. It directed the President to present yearly reports on the state of the Nation's manpower. Through the Commission, representing all agencies concerned with manpower, we can insure the urgent priority and the effective coordination which this responsibility demands.

We are in the midst of a growing revolution in our patterns of work. Technology is eliminating jobs for some and it is requiring higher skills from others. Our labor force is getting younger as our population grows and more women are returning to work. So it is a primary responsibility of our free economy to meet these challenges to match the changing needs of business and the changing requirements of workers.

But Government also has a responsibility. first, we are the Nation's largest employer. We are required to assess the country's future needs for manpower. Our studies and our recommendations often shape the manpower decisions of our private groups. Our free enterprise system has met and surmounted the grave challenges of the past. Our ability to meet this challenge, to match the need for jobs with the need for skills in the midst of a rapidly changing technology and a rapidly growing population is a new test of American vitality and capacity for growth.

We intend to meet that test. We intend to meet it with all the energy and all the imagination that a great nation can summon. I have no doubt that the result will be an America of enlarged opportunity for the fruitful labor of all of its people.

We are making visible progress toward our goals of full employment and better opportunity, although not near fast enough. for example, unemployment has declined from 5.8 percent of the labor force in the first quarter last year to 5.4 percent of the labor force in the first quarter this year. Job opportunities are growing faster.

From December 1963 to March 1964 the number of nonfarm jobs grew by 900,000. Since January 1961, 4.3 million additional nonfarm jobs have been created. The total labor income in the United States has risen by $56 billion, or 20 percent, up one-fifth since January 1961.

But we must always look to the future. We must always be trying to do more for a better life for more people. And in that effort, I am glad to be associated with the very able and patriotic company that is present here this morning and who have done so much for so many in this field.