Raising productivity in typing

The ubiquitous typewriter is certainly the office machine we could not do without. Every year in the UK at least a quarter of a million people learn some way or another to type. How many of these go on to become livelihood‐earning typists we cannot say for sure, but by the records of examining bodies the figure can hardly be fewer than 100 000. Even so, the supply of competent, trained typists does not meet the continually rising demand. Are there ways in which productivity could be raised, so as to bring supply nearer to meeting demand? Four possible approaches to this consideration may be the machine; the typist and the typing; the input; the supply of trained typists. The last of these has so many social, economic and political ramifications that it is discarded to await the results of more research.