Page:CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7.pdf/21

APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7

national emergency—has declined since the early 1950's as labor force participation has increased. Most of the employable working-age population is now working, and the portion which remains outside the labor force (approximately 1.6 million persons in 1970, of whom nearly 65% were female) is employable to only a limited degree. Most of the working-age women outside the labor force are housewives—many of them 50 years of age or more—who lack industrial skills or experience. Most men capable of working, including pensioners and the partially disabled, are already in the labor force. The main source of additional manpower during a crisis situation, therefore, would be full-time students.

2. Characteristics of the labor force

Nearly 80% of the total labor force was engaged in nonagricultural activities in 1970, a proportion surpassed in only a few other European countries. Industry (including industrial handicrafts) is the leading branch of economic activity in terms of employment and in 1970 accounted for approximately 48% of the nonagricultural and 42% of the total labor force. Industrial employment is concentrated in the south, and the former states of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt (present-day Bezirke of Karl-Marx-Stadt, Leipzig, Dresden, Halle, Magdeburg, and Erfurt) have remained the industrial heart of the country, with a secondary center in East Berlin. A substantial shipbuilding industry has developed along the Baltic Sea coast since World War II.

Agricultural employment predominates in the sparsely populated northern third of the country. The agricultural labor force was inflated after the war by an influx of workers from the cities, where food was scarce and unemployment high. By the end of the first postwar decade most of these people had returned to their prewar activities, as was reflected in the decline of the share of agriculture in the total labor force from 27% in 1946 to approximately 20% in 1955.

According to official data, the occupational distribution of the labor force during 1955-70 changed in two important respects. Approximately 700,000 persons left agriculture after 1955; in 1970 the agricultural labor force was estimated to number 1,023,000 persons (Figure 12). This substantial decline in agriculture was paralleled by a rapid growth in services. By 1964 services had displaced agriculture as the second largest employer of East German labor, and in 1970 percentages for services and agriculture were 17% and 12% respectively.

FIGURE 12. Distribution of labor by branch of economic activity

Remarkably little change, however, occurred in other branches of economic activity. Employment in most nonagricultural branches rose rapidly in the early 1950's as a result of the postwar recovery effort and the regime's industrialization drive. Reconstruction and expansion of the economy between 1950 and 1955 brought about increases in employment of as much as 20% to 40% in industry, construction, and trade. The levels reached by 1955 increased very little subsequently, however, and—with the exception of agriculture and services—the relative share of each branch in the labor force remained constant throughout the 1955-70 period.

Official East German statistics show that employment in industry (manufacturing, mining and quarrying, and public utilities) and industrial handicrafts remained slightly below the 1955 level through 1966, and by 1970 industrial employment exceeded the 1955 figure by less than 100,000 persons. Industrial handicrafts, which are classified as a separate branch of economic activity in East Germany, include privately owned producing and repair organizations employing fewer than 10 persons, excluding the owner and his wife, together with

16

APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7