THE MEANING OF ‘EXCESS SUPPLIES OF LABOUR’
| Date | 01 February 1961 |
| Published date | 01 February 1961 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1961.tb00150.x |
| Author | Simon Rottenberg |
THE
MEANING
OF
‘EXCESS SUPPLIES
OF
LABOUR’
A
FAIR
share of the burgeoning literature on poverty, stagnation
and growth among nations asserts that there are excess supplies
of
labour in the countries in which income
per
head of population is
relatively low.
This is usually thought
to
be especially
true
in agriculture and
the service industries but id oocasionally said also
to
characterise
manufacturing, especially
of
the cottage-industry type. In these sec-
tors, idleness is disguised or concealed, as when people have em-
ployment but are
‘
really
’
unemployed. Alternatively, excess
appears in the form of outright idleness.
What meaning has been given to the notion
of
excess supplies
of
labour?
Sometimes it
is
made synonymous with
a
low output/worker
ratio.2 This is,
of
course, descriptively characteristic
of
pr
nations
and regions. Output
per
worker is partly a function
of
the quantity
of
other resources with which workers are combined in production.
Labour productivity statistics are deceptive. They pretend, on their
face,
to
represent goods and services produced by workers. Actually,
they reflect the contribution to output
of
the whole constellation
of
co-operant factors. The larger the number of horsepower
of
mechanical energy used by each labourer, the larger
will
be
his
out-
put, in a productivity statistical sense, in any time period.
But
if,
in some country, the quantity
of
capital is relatively small,
a
larger
share
of
output will be attributable to the skill and effort
of
the
labourer, himself, as distinct from the factors which co-operate with
him, than in countries where the quantity
of
capital is abundant. In
such a capital-poor country, the withdrawal
of
a labourer
will
cause
output
to
diminish proportionally more than in capital-rich countries.
In both countries, the capital which the withdrawn worker had used
is
now re-combined with those who remain and their output rises
Sometimes the notion
of
excess is used without definition, as though it
had but one, evident meaning.
For
example, see Henry
M.
Oliver.
Jr.,
Econ-
omic
Opinion
and
Poky
in
Ceylon,
Durham, Duke University Press, 1957,
‘There is the problem of very low productivity, i.e. productivity being
so
low in the case
of
some
of
those who are nominally engaged in work
.
.
.
that,
if judged by the criterion
of
their net contribution to the social output, they
yould seem to be
in
eflecf
(italics in original text) unemployed.’
K.
N.
Raj,
Employment and Unemployment in the Indian Economy,’ in
Economic
De-
velopment
and
Cultural Change,
VII,
3,
Pt.
1,
April 1959, p. 258.
pp. 122-23.
5
65
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