ipation rate in the labor
force was 80 percent.

Two-thirds of the labor force was employed in agriculture, the remainder
in a variety of nonagricultural pursuits, chief among which were
industry, construction, trade, and education. Apart from the peasants
working their own land, farm labor included about 427,000 persons on
collective farms and 64,000 on state farms. The industrial labor force
of 105,300 accounted for 14.1 percent of total employment, and 40,000
construction workers, for 5.4 percent. The nearly 32,000 workers in
trade and 25,000 workers in education constituted, respectively, 4.2 and
3.4 percent of the employed manpower.

The officially reported labor force, which comprises nonagricultural
labor and state farm workers only, increased by 53 percent between 1960
and 1967, from 203,800 to 312,400 persons. The increase represents an
annual growth rate of 6.3 percent. At this rate, the labor force in 1970
would be about 375,000 persons. It has been informally reported as
400,000. Collective farm employment rose, in round numbers, from 282,000
in 1960 to 336,000 in 1966 and to 427,000 in 1967. The unusually large
increase in 1967 resulted from an intensive drive to collectivize the
remaining privately owned farms and also from a government policy of
reversing the population flow from the farms to the cities. With the
major reservoir of individual farms exhausted, the number of collective
farm workers could increase up to 1970 by roughly 45,000 to 50,000
through natural population growth. Absence of data on rural-urban
population shifts precludes any firm estimate of the size of the
collective farm labor force in 1970.

According to preliminary estimates by the planning authorities, an
increase of between 120,000 and 130,000 workers outside the collective
farm sector would be needed to implement the industrial and social
programs of the five-year plan for the 1971-75 period if productivity
remained at the level of the 1965-69 period. The natural growth of the
able-bodied urban population during this period was estimated not to
exceed 29,000 persons. An outflow of up to 100,000 persons from the
rural areas would therefore be necessary to meet the estimated manpower
needs. Such a contingency could not be countenanced because of the
severe damage it would inflict on the rural economy. Attainment of a
higher rate of participation in the labor force and of a substantial
increase in labor productivity has therefo