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the total were wage or salary earners, and 32% cooperative members. In construction, too, wage-earning employment has fallen (to 80% of the construction work force in 1970) as cooperative membership (17%) has risen; the self-employed and unpaid family workers accounted for only 3% of the 1970 total.
Little current information is available on the occupational structure of the East German labor force; official statistics are fragmentary, often out of date, and difficult to evaluate. Data for industry show that the number of production workers is declining, particularly in the more highly mechanized industries. About 66% of the wage and salary earners (excluding apprentices) in industry were classified as production workers in 1970, compared with 71% in 1960. The ratio of production workers to total work force in 1970 was lowest in the electrical engineering and precision tool branches (59%) and highest in light industry excluding textiles (77%). Conversely, the number of technical, managerial, and administrative personnel is gradually increasing in all branches of industry. These trends are expected to continue as increased investment and imports of advanced machinery continue to raise the level of mechanization.
Available data on the skills of the labor force show the same trends. The proportion of unskilled workers in socialist state-owned industry fell from 12.0% in 1964 to 9.6% in 1970, while that of semiskilled workers fell from 43.0% to 37.9%. The skilled category rose steadily over the same period from 45.0% to 52.5%. Characteristic differences remain in the distribution of skills by industrial branch. In 1970, only 36% of the work force in foodstuffs was skilled, compared with 62% in fuels and power and in heavy machine building. The relatively low skill level in the light industry branches is linked with the high proportion of untrained women employed in these branches. Efforts to increase the number of skilled female workers have thus far met with little success, and only 20% of employed women are classified as skilled. Given the large proportion of women in the labor force, their disinclination to acquire additional occupational skills or undertake further professional training creates a serious obstacle for the regime in its efforts to upgrade overall skill levels.
Improving the qualifications of the labor force is a matter of serious concern despite the fact that East Germany is favored with a productive labor force which has considerable technological experience and a long tradition of excellence in industrial arts and crafts. Skill shortages have appeared because of the continued expansion of industry, and have been aggravated by the loss of trained manpower through war casualties, emigration, and retirement. The level of training for young people entering the labor force, moreover, has not increased as the regime had planned, for many students as the regime had planned, for many students leave school before their education is complete in order to take jobs in industry.
Vocational training begins at an early age, for the educational system has, since 1958, been based on the Soviet concept of polytechnic education, which combines academic instruction and actual work experience. In grades 1 to 6, work experience is in the form of an introduction to tools and simple machines, work in school gardens, and trips to farms and factories; from grade 7 on, students work for short periods on farms and in factories, where they seem generally to be regarded as a nuisance. After grade 9 they are required to work full time for several weeks a year. Apprenticeship training begins after completion of 8 or 10 years of the polytechnic schools. Fluctuations in the number of apprentices clearly reflect the earlier exodus of young East Germans to the West and the subsequent effect of the construction of the Berlin Wall. The total fell steadily through 1964, from 507,700 in 1952 to 264,600 in 1963, and then began to rise, reaching 448,800 in 1970. In addition to full-time apprenticeship training on the job, vocational training is offered to secondary school graduates in Berufsschulen (full-time or part-time vocational schools located within the plant's facilities) and in Fachschulen (full-time trade schools). The great majority of workers receive training only in the Berufsschulen in their places of employment.
3. Labor productivity and working conditions
Industrial labor productivity has risen at an impressive rate compared with that of other European countries. Official statistics show an average increase of slightly more than 6% per year in output per worker in industry for the 1955-70 period. Although the current rate of increase of 6% per year is respectable by East European standards, it fell short of the 7% annual increase called for in the government's economic plan for 1966-70, and there is little likelihood that the 7% target reiterated in the 1971-75 plan will be met either.
In the drive for increased productivity, primary reliance is placed on wage incentives. Wage increases are linked to increases in output through the system of norms (standards of quantity or quality of work which are established for every enterprise). Work norms were tightened in 1962 and again in 1964, and provision was made for regular revision of norms as production techniques improved. The current norms exceed in most cases what the average worker can achieve, and the system is highly unpopular.
The regime uses a number of other methods to increase productivity. The unpopular Stakhanovite system is known in East Germany as the Hennecke
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7
