Specialisation brings its benefits but also has its costs.

Essay by ask.mHigh School, 12th gradeA-, November 2006

download word file, 2 pages 1.0

Downloaded 14 times

It is apparent that majority of firms and individuals specialise in the things they produce or the service they provide. The most common type of specialisation today is the division of labour, this being the division of an overall task into smaller ones to be concentrated on by individual workers. It has been proven that this process enables goods to be produced at a faster rate- a classic example would be that of Adam Smith who had found that a pin factory only produced 10 pins a day when the whole task was done by a single person whereas 4800 pins were produced when labour was divided and individuals concentrated on smaller tasks. Specialisation can be beneficial for both workers and employers- workers each participate fractionally to the production of a good and employers gain the amount of produce they want more rapidly. However, it has to be said that it is most beneficial to employers and specialisation does have its costs too, that mainly affect workers.

It is correct to say that specialisation gives workers the chance to increase dexterity as they repeat the same movements, making them faster and more accurate in their job. This in turn makes the whole system work quicker, which helps save time, cut the cost of expenses as well as increase output. Although the improvement in skills is likely to enable workers to be faster and accurate in their job, the monotony could lead to boredom and consequently, this could lead to a poorer quality in the goods produced. Specialisation also cuts training costs for employers because workers are only needed to be taught a fraction of the overall job. This requires less skill to teach as well as to learn precisely, however, it is again the workers that suffer as they...