Redundant Labor Research Articles

China's transition towards the market: “Socialization” of the safety net

Reform of the state-owned enterprise sector is probably the most strategic area of reform during China's transition towards a market economy. For efficiency improvements to be possible, stateowned enterprises must be able to adjust the size and nature of their operations in response to market signals, adding or shedding workers as necessary. However, given that housing, pensions, and healthcare, among a myriad of social welfare services, are tied to the enterprise, labor mobility is highly constrained. This makes it difficult to reallocate redundant labor across occupations, enterprises, and locations. Clearly, for more efficiently-operating labor markets to emerge, worker access to housing and other welfare benefits must be delinked from employment in the enterprise. This paper discusses the possible ways of breaking the link and strengthening the social safety net. The emphasis here being on the urban sector, issues related to safety net provisions in the rural areas, albeit of great importance, will not be discussed at length.

Labor Market Adjustment in Transitional Economies

This paper outlines the principal labor market developments in the transitional (formally centrally planned) economies, presents a framework for conceptualizing the functioning of these markets and draws conclusions with respect to public policy in the labor market. It assesses the effect of transition on wages, employment, and trade unions. The paper observes that although wage controls played an important role in stabilizing these economies, they also maintained and aggravated major distortions. The paper recommends the imposition of hard budget constraints and proposes that profitable enterprises in the business of producing tradables be permitted to set their own wages. With rapidly rising unemployment, the reallocation of redundant labor requires immediate attention. The paper argues that social--rather than private--welfare criteria should guide the behaviour of state enterprises. Finally, trade unions and other employee institutions have not been involved in the formulation and implementation of market-oriented reforms. Although they have been amenable so far, the danger is that mounting job losses and economic hardship could turn these organizations into formidable adversaries of the transition powers.

Surplus Labour, Poverty and Agricultural Development - A Case Study of Andhra Pradesh

Surplus or redundant labour in agriculture, which is a typical characteristic of developing countries, is believed to be one of the causes of or consequence of economic backwardness. A major portion of this surplus comes from rural areas. Most of the developing countries suffer from excess population growth, and the quantum of labour surplus varies from region to region depending on the structural characteristic of the region.

China's new agricultural-policy program: Major economic consequences, 1979–1983

While the bulk of the farm surplus is still compulsorily siphoned off to support the Stalinist strategy of maximizing growth of heavy industry, the new policy attempts to ease the agricultural constraints by drastically raising procurement prices, reparcelizing farmland to the households, and promoting rural diversification to help accommodate both redundant labor and increased local demands for consumables. The new emphasis on maximization of short-run investments makes it difficult to cope with natural disasters and to undertake large-scale irrigation projects. Hence bureaucratic correctives appear to remain indispensable, hopefully without impairing peasants' incentives. J. Comp. Econ., Dec. 1984, 8(4), pp. 353–375. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong; School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London WC1E 7HP.

From unemployment to rapid growth?

With unemployment in the OECD countries approaching 30 millions, and with the Mitterrand regime providing yet another example of the failure of demand-led attempts at growth, this article considers the possibility of the advanced industrialised countries returning to a pattern of rapid growth based on plentiful labour supplies. If Keynesian measures to combat high unemployment are rejected, will redundant labour eventually find its own demand, and will this allow a new wave of fast industrial expansion?

National Agricultural Labor Policy Considerations

T HE above quotation sounds as up to date as last week. It is from the Report of the Commission on Country Life, published in 1911.1 The complaint has been chronic throughout our agricultural history. At some times and in some places, the complaint had a basis in fact; more often it has not had. Perhaps there will be greater complaint in the months ahead. Growing uneasiness has characterized the farm labor picture for several years. This feeling gradually has increased as the immediate postwar years faded behind us and yet there continued to be a supposed farm labor scarcity-if the policy of labor importation can be taken as evidence. Serious wartime farm labor shortages (in a general severe labor shortage situation) were solved almost exclusively by a domestic program of labor recruitment and relocation assistance. In contrast, during the 1950's, as unemployment was rising and as agricultural economists talked more and more about redundant labor on America's farms and in rural areas, the most important single measure ever to deal with this subject authorized heavy use of foreign labor. Public Law 78, enacted in 1951, was speedily implemented, and importation of foreign workers was multiplied many times. For the years 1955 through 1959, the number of foreign workers was approximately five times greater than during the peak war-year of 1944 (Table 1). At this point, we can quote again from the 1911 Report of the Commission on Country Life: There is a growing tendency to rely on foreigners for the farm labor supply.... It is the general testimony that the native American labor is less efficient and less reliable than much of the foreign labor.2