Abstract
The East German labour market is marked by an increasing shortage of manpower resources. ‘The complaint about lack of labour is being heard in nearly all plants and organizations, beginning with the pub at the corner up to the big industrial combine’;1 statements of this kind are found not only in professional writings but also in the GDR mass media every day. The following data illustrate this situation.
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Notes
F. Rudolf, Berliner Zeitung, 11 October 1979, p. 3.
H. Vortmann, in H. H. Höhmann (ed.), Arbeitsmarkt und Wirtschaftsplanung. Beiträge zur Beschäftigungsstruktur und Arbeitskraftepolitik in Osteuropa (Köln-Frankfurt a.-M., 1977) p. 105.
For the GDR: Vortmann, op. cit., p. 107; for other countries: F. Levcik, Research Reprot No. 26 (Wiener Institut für internationale Wirtschaftsvergleiche, April 1976) p. 19.
The most developed economies within the CMEA - the East German and the Czechoslovak economies - have been obliged to make enormous deliveries of investment goods to the Soviet Union and the other member countries which have restricted their export capacities to their important partners in the West (more about this problem see J. Kosta, Abriss der sozialökonomischen Entwicklung der Tschechoslowakei 1975–1977 (Frankfurt, 1978) in particular pp. 72–87).
E. Sachse, Sozialistische Arbeitswissenschaft, no. 4 (1978) p. 277.
As to the manpower planning in Soviet-type systems see J. Kosta, in C. Watrin (ed.), Struktur-und stabilitätspolitische Probleme in alternativen Wirtschaftssystemen (Berlin, 1974) pp. 108–12.
W. Klein, Deutschland-Archiv, no. 1 (1978) p. 39.
G. Kunter and W. Müller, Sozialistische Arbeitswissenschaft, no. 1 (1974) pp. 1–9;
R. Döhler, Sozialistische Arbeitswissenschaft, no. 5 (1974) pp. 356–60.
W. Jaide, Deutschland Archiv, nio. 2 (1977) pp. 176–9.
For both wages and bonuses see: H. Bley et al., Ökonomik der Arbeit (Berlin (GDR), 1974) pp. 494–500.
J. Strassburger, Deutschland Archiv, no. 9 (1976) pp. 950–8.
For more details concerning the ‘bonus fund’ and the ‘performance fund’ see A. Bley, Leitfaden zur Finanzierung der volkseigenen Industrie (Berlin (GDR), 1978) pp. 139–41;
J. Körner, Deutschland Archiv, no. 10 (1977) pp. 1080–92;
H. W. Stenzel and H. Uebermuth, Finanzen und Preise (Berlin (GDR), 1978) pp. 84–90.
The social funds granted by the state budget (for education, medical care, pensions, subsidies for housing, local transport, etc.) function to a certain extent like another incentive ‘in direct dependence from quantity and quality of performed labour’: A. Keck, Sozialistische Finanzen, no. 6 (1976) pp. 6–9.
F. Gratz, Deutschland Archiv, no. 10 (1977) p. 1079.
See, e.g., F. Rudolf, Berliner Zeitung, 18 April 1980, p. 3.
K. H. Arnold, Berliner Zeitung, 17 April 1980, p. 3;
Arnold, Berliner Zeitung, 18 April 1980, p. 3;
J. Blady, Tribune, 16 January 1980, p. 3;
R. Gericke, F. Haberland, Erfahrungen und Aufgaben sozialistischer Rationalisierung, Abhandlungen der AdW (Berlin (GDR), 1983) p. 21.
S. Grund, Sozialistische Arbeitswissenschaft, no. 3 (1972) p. 239.
L. Humel, Zum Stand und den weiteren Aufgaben bei der Gewinnung von Arbeitskraften durch sozialistische Rationalisierung, Abhandlungen der AdW (Berlin (GDR), 1983) p. 66.
H. Grabley, Sozialistische Arbeitswissenschaft, no. 6 (1983).
The ‘ratchet effect’ means the behaviour of a firm in a centrally planned economy of the Soviet type which consists in keeping permanent input reserves according to achievements in the past planning period (compare, e.g., V. Vincentz, ‘Über die Ausgestaltung von Prämiensystemen’, paper delivered at a conference of the Ausschuss zum Vergleich von Wirtschaftssystemen, Tutzing, 18 and 19 September 1980).
Those and others are explained convincingly in a study investigating the same problem in Czechoslovakia: J. Adam and J. Cekota, Revue d’études comparatives Est-Ouest, no. 4, 1980.
The reasons for the slow rate of technology progress in a centrally planned economy are shown in H. G. J. Kosta, H. Kramer and J. Sláma, Der technologische Fortschritt in Österreich und in der Tschechoslowakei (Wien/New York, 1971) in particular p. 82.
M. Melzer and A. Scherzinger, Vierteljahreshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW Berlin) no. 4 (1978) pp. 379–92.
Ibid., pp. 276–9; a particular phenomenon is the unexpected tendency of technological change to lead to workers’ dequalification (see, e.g. R. Deppe and D. Hoss, Sozialistische Rationalisierung (Frankfurt a.-M., 1980).
K. Lubcke, Arbeit und Arbeitsrecht, no. 4(1980) pp. 152–3;
A. Tomm, Sozialistische Arbeitswissenschaft, no. 6 (1976) pp. 421–7.
Compare K. Belwe, Deutschland Archiv, no. 6 (1980) pp. 601–11;
A. Scherzinger, Vierteljahreshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung, no. 3 (1979) pp. 237–40.
An exception, to a certain extent, is an article by a labour economist who points out that labour mobility is by and large a necessary feature of the intensive type of growth and one should find ‘criteria for optimal tendencies of labour mobility’ (A. Tomm, Sozialistische Arbeitswissenschaft, no. 6 (1979) pp. 421–6).
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© 1987 Jan Adam
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Kosta, J. (1987). Manpower Problems in the GDR. In: Adam, J. (eds) Employment Policies in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08756-3_3
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