Unemployment

With the end of the World War II, unemployment was one of the greatest difficulties the Japanese economy faced. There were 13.1 million jobless people (Nakamura 1995). It was expected at the time that a dramatic jump in the number of unemployed would be unavoidable. However, large scale unemployment never actually occurred. Many people returned to their former jobs, particularly in agriculture, but again government was concerned by how to create job for the rest of the unemployed. The most valuable lesson of Japanese industrial policy lies in this management of employment. The government supported increase in agricultural output and provided allowance for those who went to the rural areas. Already in 1947, rural communities absorbed labour force of 18 million people. In this way massive unemployment did not developed. Moreover, some policies were aimed at the supply side i.e. increasing production of output by providing subsidies and other preferential treatment. Thus, the Japanese government decided to maintain employment by blocking competition in selected industries and in this way helped to create a stable base from which development could smoothly take place (those industries are steel, chemicals, selected machinery, and other industries that are subject to dynamic internal economies). Using these measures, employment was increasing on average at a low 2.7% from 1950-1955 (Nakamura 1995). At this time, there was progress in industrialisation and great diversification in industry.

Table 2.5. Sectoral Distribution of Employment in Japan

Source: Komiya et al. (1988) p.51

The rapid pace of the industrialization can be clearly seen in changes in the sectoral composition of employment which is presented in Table 2.5. Employment dropped rapidly in the primary sector and increased in the secondary and tertiary sectors. However, the total production index in agriculture did not decrease in the post-war Japan, having 1950 as base year, indexes in 1955, 1960 and 1965 were 108, 110 and 118, respectively (Moore 1990). Comparing it with pre-war data and having 1938 as base year of rice production, index was 94.8 in 1947, 115.8 in 1956 and 127 in 1961. Production of oranges even doubled, in 1947 index was 49.4, but in 1956 it was 156, and in 1962 was 225.7 (Morris-Suzuki at al. 1989).

Before the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina had almost 4.4 million habitants. By the end of the war 1.5 million people fled the country as refugees. The war and ethnic cleansing displaced large numbers of the people from their homes. Traumatic events of the 1990s dramatically affected demographic trends and migration flows in BiH. The population residing in BiH has been substantially reduced, as many people were displaced, exiled, and killed, and ethnic cleansing produced ethnically much more homogeneous territorial units. The number of displaced persons inside the Bosnia and Herzegovina peaked at 1.3 million in 1995, but till today it is reduced to 800.000. Refugees and displaced persons could not go back to their origins and their previous jobs. They were surviving on financial support from relatives in the country or outside of country, international humanitarian assistance and activities in informal economy.