# Dexterity of the Workman

## Definition

The skill and speed a worker acquires through repeated performance of a single
specialised operation. Smith identifies the increase in dexterity as the first
of three causes by which the division of labour improves productive power.
Specialisation reduces each worker's task to one simple operation, making it
the sole employment of their life, and thereby dramatically increasing their
proficiency.

## Source Chapter

Book I, Chapter 1: "Of the Division of Labour"

## Context

Presented as the first of three mechanisms explaining why the division of labour
increases output. Smith illustrates it with the example of nail-making: an
unskilled smith makes 200-300 nails per day, while a specialised nailer can
produce over 2,300.

## Economic Domain

Production

## Smith's Original Wording

"First, the improvement of the dexterity of the workmen, necessarily increases
the quantity of the work he can perform; and the division of labour, by reducing
every man's business to some one simple operation, and by making this operation
the sole employment of his life, necessarily increases very much the dexterity
of the workman."