e
intermediate level, such as technicians and foremen. Few workers have
professional school training; most acquire their skills through short
courses or on-the-job training. The number of skilled workers is too
small to allow efficient two-shift operation of plants throughout most
of industry. The lack of adequate skills and the associated inept
handling and poor maintenance of imported sophisticated machinery have
been responsible for frequent breakdowns. The resultant work stoppages
and the under-utilization of available capacity have had a deleterious
effect on productivity.

Because of a high rate of investment and large-scale imports of advanced
Western technology and equipment, productivity per worker nevertheless
has been rising at a relatively rapid rate. According to official data,
productivity in industry increased by an annual average of 7.5 percent
in the 1960-69 period, but the increase in 1969 was less than 5 percent.
Official plans for the 1971-75 period call for an annual growth in
productivity of at least 7.3 percent. Western economists, however,
estimated the rise in productivity to have been only 5.6 percent per
year in the 1960-67 period, compared to an official figure of 8 percent.
Despite the impressive gains, productivity in industry remains low,
mainly because of the inadequate qualifications and work habits of the
labor force and the shortcomings of industrial organization and
management.

Industrial labor discipline has been a subject of continuing concern to
party and government. Both labor turnover and absenteeism have been
high. During the first nine months of 1969 almost 455,000 workers left
their jobs in centrally administered enterprises, in many instances
without the requisite official permission. During the same period
worktime losses from absenteeism amounted to about 12 million man-hours.
Abuse of the provision for leave without pay and loafing on the job have
also contributed significantly to losses of worktime. For centrally
administered industry as a whole, the loss of worktime from all causes,
including stoppages caused by deficiencies of the supply and
distribution system, amounted to almost 47 million man-hours in the
third quarter of 1969--the equivalent of about 74,400 workers.

Poor labor discipline was officially blamed on the failure of the
prevailing wage system to provide adequate work incentives. After some
experimentation in the food-processing industry during 1968 a