To prove or disprove the hypothesis that automation and technological change impose increased skill demands on manufacturing and service industries, case studies were made of a bank and a steel and air products company, and of two oil companies, airlines, and electric power companies. The basic conceptual tool used to measure skill demands was the skill profile, a study of the distribution of total manhours required to produce a unit product (or service) along a scale of the least to the most highly skilled labor. The study found that there was little or no net overall tendency for the mean skill level of the workforce to increase with technological change. Small changes in mean skill were largely offset by larger overall productivity increases, and thus, decreases in absolute demand measured in manhours per unit of production for specific skill brackets were more prevalent than increases. Declines in absolute labor demand were greatest for semiskilled workers and the next greatest declines were for laborers. Skilled workers were the least affected. A bibliography, charts, and tables used to develop the skill profiles are appended. (BC)