Micrographs and panoramic images were taken with an FEI transmission electron microscope at an acceleration voltage of 80 kV with a TVIPS TemCamF416 digital camera using the software EM-MENU . Panoramic images were aligned with the software IMOD.Sharp drops in employment have characterized the economic transition occurring in Central and Eastern Europe. Their persistence has been a surprise to those who anticipated rapid economic recovery . The situation in Bulgaria echoes that in other countries and is of political concern because of its impact on people and the country’s well being. The symptoms are well known . Overall employment dropped by 28 percent between 1989 and 1994, and agricultural employment declined by 13 percent. The principal reasons for these reductions are the abrupt decline in production and the restructuring of Bulgaria’s economy. But there are offsetting factors, such as technological changes, that have slowed the employment loss. An understanding of the dynamics of unemployment is needed if remedial strategies are to be developed. The research reported here adds a component to the extensive review of Bulgaria’s agricultural transition by Schmitz et al. Its focus is on rural employment and its relation to agriculture.
Non-agricultural employment fell more rapidly than agricultural employment but the impact of this on rural areas is not well understood. Agricultural employment declined less rapidly than did production,plastic pot manufacturers suggesting a shift in technology and the emergence of under-employment. There is inadequate information about which groups have been most affected or what has happened to the people. National data provides only a partial picture of this situation and therefore is an inadequate base for public policy choices. Further, there is the question raised by Bartholdy about the ability of data systems to retain accuracy during a period of fundamental change to a country’s economic system. The problem is how to obtain sufficient information about rural employment to permit better policy choices to be made. Two approaches have been followed to improve the data base for policy decisions. The first approach involves comparing agricultural employment with scientifically determined labor requirements for agricultural production. This permits measurement at the national level of how the surplus of agricultural labor changed between 1989 and 1994. The result helps in isolating the impact of output changes on employment from technology and other changes, and helps identify the size and character of the agricultural labor pool. It also permits an estimation of the impact of future changes in productivity and production patterns.
The second approach uses local data, obtained through a survey of village households and cooperatives, to provide information about rural employment that is not available from existing national data. It helps determine how rural households, enterprises, and communities have been affected by production and employment changes and how they might be helped. The village survey, conducted in the Summer of 1995, provided unique data that are being reported here for the first time.The problems and policy implications of unemployment in Central and Eastern Europe have been studied extensively, primarily at the aggregate rather than sectoral level . Some studies focus principally on policy or statistical issues . Important attention has been given to the dynamics of unemployment, including its persistence, and the flow between vacancies, unemployment and jobs. These studies examine policy implications of changes in productivity, real wages, employment and labor force participation rates . Other studies have emphasized the link between unemployment, income, and poverty . Relatively few studies have focused on Bulgaria and they tend not to emphasize agricultural and rural employment . The European Union study briefly analyzed the agricultural labor situation, using national statistics to comment on labor inefficiency. Mihailova computed national agricultural labor requirements using norms developed through studies of agricultural production processes. Sotsiologicheski Pregled, in a special issue, provided an overview of poverty, unemployment, and social policy as it affected rural and urban areas in Bulgaria.The practical problem of evaluating the employment situation in Bulgaria is tremendously difficult.
Rock lists 8 external and 5 internal factors affecting employment in Bulgaria, and concludes that transition has been hindered by an enormous number of external and internal constraints. Boeri commented that “conventional wisdom does not seem to offer many clues to the factors lying behind the dynamics of unemployment in CEEC.” Just the same, theory offers a framework for classifying the variables influencing labor demand and can be helpful in guiding the way through the complex network of cause and effect. The demand for agricultural labor is a function of output , wages, other input costs, and the structure of agriculture. Supply is a function of wages, opportunity costs , population, and the institutional structure within which decisions are made. Employment changes in Bulgaria, as in the rest of central and eastern Europe, have been caused by reductions in labor demand rather than reductions in its supply. First, output of agricultural produce has fallen because both domestic and foreign demand has fallen. Second, labor has become cheaper relative to other inputs and stimulates the use of more labor intensive technology. The third factor is the restructuring of agriculture through the privatization of land and the liquidation of collective farms that affects both technology and output. Both domestic and foreign agricultural demand have contracted, causing the agricultural demand curve to shift to the left. Given the generally inelastic nature of agricultural demand, prices would have had to drop precipitously to maintain the same volume of demand. Other factors shifted the aggregate agricultural supply curve, shifting it upwards and to the left. These included the increase in input costs relative to output prices and the disruptive effects of farm restructuring. The net effect of these shifts was that output declined, the real value of output dropped, and agriculture’s contribution to GDP fell. Since the focus here is on labor demand, the shifts in agricultural demand and supply are taken as exogenous. The effects of the change in wages relative to other input costs can be analyzed in the standard neoclassical two-factor model in which the demand for labor and capital depends on their relative values, w Ir, and on the level of output, Q. The pre-reform level of labor and capital usage depended on these factors,black plastic plant pots wholesale which in turn were influenced by technology and by various policy interventions. Post-reform there are at least 3 shocks to the system. The first is the drop in output caused by demand and supply shifts and agricultural restructuring. This shifts the “Q” isoquant in the model inwards . Because of technology changes, the new isoquant may not be based on the same production function as in the pre-reform period. Second, the stock of capital is diminished because of deferred maintenance and the resulting accelerated depreciation and non-renewal of obsolete assets. The third change is the fall in the relative cost of labor. The first factor can be neutral, although in Bulgaria it is evident that restructuring has caused a change in technology usage. The second and third factors favor the substitution of labor for capital. To the extent that there is a rational economic response to the new wir value and the output level, Q, then more labor will be used relative to capital than was the pre-reform case. This phenomena is investigated by comparing changes in agricultural labor requirements with shifts in agricultural employment. Restructuring refers to a complex mix of changes in farm land ownership and organizational relationships used in operating farms.
The outcome of restructuring by the end of 1994 was a mixture of smaller cooperatives, large scale farming companies, private partnerships, and family farms. The essence of restructuring is that it creates enterprises with different mixes of management skills, technology,resource mix, and objectives. These, in tum, lead to different outcomes in the factor ratios employed and the level of productivity. The balance between labor shedding by the more commercially operated farms versus the labor absorption of the more numerous, labor-intensive family farms, will depend on the relative numbers in each of these categories. This report makes no attempt to isolate the impact of restructuring on labor demand, but rather concentrates on measuring the impacts of output and technology changes. Since the explicit nature of technology in 1994 could only be inferred in the absence of updated studies on production labor requirements, the effects of output and technology were estimated according to the following model. The ratio of agricultural employment to agricultural labor requirements in 1989 is considered the measure of pre-reform agricultural technology. This measure is multiplied by labor requirements calculated for 1994 and provides an estimate of what employment would have been in 1994 if technology had not changed between 1994 and 1989. The difference between this number and employment in 1989 is the loss in employment caused by the decline in output. The difference between this number and actual employment in 1994 is a measure of employment change created by technology and other changes.The national employment data used here reports all persons carrying out certain activities in public and private enterprises and receiving payments or income. The amount of work performed is not specified. The data exclude work performed by students, army, or others in agricultural brigades prior to reform. 2 This was predominately for harvest. Consequently, the employment figure for 1989 understates the number of people actually performing agricultural work while the data for 1994 are more nearly correct with respect to harvesting. The data also exclude labor performed on private plots, even if some of the resulting products were sold on the market. Agricultural production in Bulgaria dropped by an estimated 29 percent between 1989 and 1994, more than double the rate of decline in agricultural employment . Agricultural labor requirements, as discussed in the following section, declined at an even faster rate of 38 percent. The differential between these 3 rates indicates clearly that more labor was used per unit of output in 1994 than was the case in 1989. How can this be explained? First the production structure in Bulgarian agriculture has changed resulting in different scales of operation and probably more labor intensive technology. Although some case studies indicate that new specialized farm organizations can obtain greater yields and use less labor the average of Bulgarian agriculture in 1994 was more labor intensive than before. Secondly, the non-availability of student and military help after 1989 had to be offset by employed labor in 1994. Consequently, employment could not shrink as rapidly as output.Normatives are labor inputs measured in number of workers or time needed to complete component parts of some agricultural process. Norms are the summation of labor inputs needed to complete a determined volume of work or to produce a defined quantity of product under specific conditions. The calculations of normatives and norms are based on careful observation and analysis of labor-using activities. Those used here were developed or compiled by the Research Institute for Agricultural Economics from observations made throughout the country. With knowledge of the technology applied and the output achieved, one can use norms to estimate how much labor would be required in producing that output under perfectly efficient conditions. Normatives and norms evaluate the important factors in plant and animal breeding. In plant breeding, these include technical, organizational, agricultural, biological, phYSiological, hygienic, and natural factors. In animal breeding the factors include the kind, purpose, and productivity of animals, the quantity and quality of fodder, and the type and characteristics of equipment, machinery, and buildings.We calculated the average number of days worked per year by employed persons by multiplying 240 days per year by the ratio of labor required to persons employed. The number of days worked per year dropped from 191 in 1989, after adjusting for work provided by brigades, to 148 days in 1994. The relative drop would have been greater if the employee work had not been displaced by brigades in 1989. These data show clearly that the surplus of labor in agriculture increased and that the existing work force is, on average, a part-time work force. The difference in agricultural labor requirements calculated for 1989 and 1994 reflect three important changes: a significant drop in agricultural production; an important shift toward more labor intensive practices; and a decline in the average number of days per year worked by those employed.