Unemployment in the Soviet Union - University of Pittsburgh

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARC H

TITLE :

Unemployment in the Soviet Unio n

AUTHOR : William Moskoff

CONTRACTOR :

Lake Forest College

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR : William Moskoff

COUNCIL CONTRACT NUMBER : 806-3 6

DATE :

May, 199 2

The work leading to this report was supported by contract funds provided by the National Council for Soviet an d East European Research . The analysis and interpretations contained in the report are those of the author.

ICNOFOPYRRMIGAHTITON

Individual researchers retain the copyright on work products derived from research funded by Council Contract . The Council and the U.S. Government have the right to duplicate written reports and other materials submitted under Council Contract and to distribute such copies within the Council and U.S. Government for their own use , and to draw upon such reports and materials for their own studies ; but the Council and U.S. Government do not have the right to distribute, or make such reports and materials available, outside the Council or U.S. Government without the written consent of the authors, except as may be required under the provisions of th e Freedom of Information Act 5 U.S. C. 552, or other applicable law.

ABSTRAC T

Unemployment in the Former Soviet Unio n This paper assesses the unemployment situation in the forme r Soviet Union . There are several arguments made . The first i s that there is an inability to count the number of unemploye d properly and, therefore, official figures are of limited valu e for policy making purposes . The second is that at the end o f 1991, the official level of unemployment was extraordinaril y below the level that might have been expected, given the dismal performance of the economy during the year . This is attribute d to the tenacity of the old system and its implicit commitmen t that everyone has the right to a job . Secondarily, it i s attributed to a likely substitution of labor for capital in som e areas of the economy . The unemployment that does exist has resulted from a numbe r of causes, including the breakdown in the central plannin g system, the anti-nuclear movement, and the conversion of defens e plants to civilian production . It has not resulted from th e usual causes associated with the recessions in western economies . Unemployment has struck women and young worker s disproportionately . It is also extremely high in Central Asi a because of the perverse patterns of economic development in the region and the relative immobility of the population . Unemployment will climb to very high levels when the forme r republics make the transition to a market, perhaps to as much a s fifteen million unemployed . This leaves a number of questions t o answer . How can unemployment benefits be provided without

central resources, given the severe maldistribution of economi c resources in the former Soviet Union? How can retraining and jo b placement services be provided, again, in the face of an uneve n distribution of resources among the newly independent countries ?

The competition for jobs will grow more intense and ther e may well be pressure on the relatively high employment areas o f the country to cope with individuals trying to migrate from th e least well off parts of the country . There is likely to be a n insistence on the part of the indigenous and dominant ethni c group to keep "outsiders" away from precious local jobs . Thi s tension will mount as the new nations confront the choice betwee n the frightening consequences of the market and the unwillingnes s of their citizens to accept unemployment .

CONTENT S

How Many Unemployed?

1

Types of Unemployment

3

Structural Unemployment

4

Involuntary Frictional Unemployment

6

Who Are the Unemployed?

7

Central Asian Unemployment

9

The Problem of Refugees

12

Unemployment Legislation

14

Unemployment Benefits

17

Employment Services

18

The Moscow Labor Exchange

21

Okun's Law, job Rights, and hidden Unemployment

23

Unemployment and Emigration

27

Conclusion : The Future Picture of Unemployment

29

ENDNOTES

35

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download