Due to the fact that the U.S. has a shortage of skilled labourers compared to Europe, there is a strong emphasis on labour-saving technology. At the same time there is a population explosion during the latter half of the 19th century which requires census-taking programs. It was Herman Hollerith (1859–1929) who started the Tabulating Machine Company (1896), which later became I.B.M., in order to sell equipment to the U.S. government to fulfill the need for a means of storing and tabulating census data.