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Bhutan Labor Force
"The economy of Bhutan is characterized by the
predominance of
people engaged in self-employment," reported the
government's
Planning Commission in 1989, "particularly those working
their own
land." Statistics available for the mid-1980s revealed
that 87
percent of the working-age population was involved in
agricultural
work, another 3.4 percent in government services, 0.9
percent in
business, 2 percent in "other" occupations, and 6.5
percent--mostly
teenagers and young adults--that had no stated occupation.
In the
late 1980s, there was a serious shortage of indigenous
nonagricultural labor and, in the government's view, an
overabundance of foreign laborers. To carry out the
construction of
roads, hydropower plants, and other infrastructure
development so
important to modernization, the government, however, has
had to
depend upon foreign laborers. Low wages for laborers, ties
to
agricultural work, and a dispersed population led to the
influx of
migrant labor, estimated to have reached 100,000 Nepalese
laborers
from India in 1988.
Foreign laborers in Bhutan increased during the 1980s,
compelling the government to identify and expel the
growing number
of those without work permits. In a government crackdown
starting
in 1986, some 1,000 illegal foreigners were expelled. Most
were
Nepalese; Bangladeshis and Indians made up the balance. By
1988 the
crackdown had reduced the number of foreign workers and
provided
opportunities for some 4,000 unemployed Bhutanese to join
the work
force.
Trade union activity was not legalized until 1991.
There was no
collective bargaining, and labor-related issues were nil
in a
society in which less than 1 percent of the population was
involved
in industrial work. Bhutan was not a member of the
International
Labour Organisation.
Data as of September 1991
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