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MongoliaLabor Force Policy and Planning
The Mongolian regime sets and implements labor force policy
and planning. In the late 1980s, policy on the work force
followed the General Plan for Development and Distribution of the
Mongolian People's Republic's Productive Forces for the Period up
to the Year 2,000 and the Program for Optimal and Rational Use of
the MPR's Labor Resources. Manpower was managed by the State
Committee on Labor and Wages until January 1988, when the
committee was dissolved and its functions were absorbed by the
new State Planning and Economic Committee
(see Major State Organizations
, ch. 4). The major objectives of state manpower
policy were: planned filling of all jobs with workers possessing
the appropriate occupational qualifications in order to satisfy
manpower requirements for the smooth functioning of the economy;
full employment, balancing the number of workers with jobs
available; increased labor productivity in all economic sectors;
and manpower management based on principles of free will and
material interest and on observance of the constitutional right
to work and to free choice of occupation. The government planned
labor resources and allocated labor by drawing up a national
manpower balance sheet for one-year and five-year periods. This
balance sheet, which aggregated territorial and administrative
manpower balance sheets, took into account total population,
total labor resources, distribution of labor resources, and
estimates of additional manpower and training requirements; it
also estimated the number of young people starting work or study
courses. Analysis of the national manpower balance sheet enabled
the state to plan for the training and the allocation of skilled
manpower.
Special emphasis was placed on domestic vocational and
technical training and on training opportunities abroad. In 1985
Mongolia had 40 vocational training schools with an enrollment of
27,700
(see Education
, ch. 2). Many Mongolians studied and took
training courses of varying duration in the Soviet Union and
other Comecon countries; in 1988 there were approximately 10,000
such students in the Soviet Union. The Eighth Plan called for the
training of 52,000 specialists with higher and secondary
technical specialist education and for no fewer than 60,000
skilled workers. As a result of such training, Mongolia's
literate work force possessed increasingly sophisticated
technical skills.
The state allocated manpower in two principal ways. First,
local committees considered individual wishes, place of
residence, and family situation, then provided work warrants to
graduating students from all levels who were not pursuing further
education. These work warrants compelled the management of
organizations requesting workers to give the graduating students
work in the appropriate occupation, as well as to provide
additional training, housing, and other benefits. Second, state
labor organizations recruited workers to fill positions. Workers
could choose occupations, and they signed contracts committing
them to work for either an indefinite period or for a fixed
period of up to three years. State recruitment of labor was
important because of labor shortages in certain sectors of the
economy. With increased urbanization and the emphasis on
specialized technical training, agricultural laborers were
scarce, as were workers in capital construction. Imbalances in
the labor force, combined with the composition of the population
(the World Bank projected in 1987 that by 1990 some 72 percent of
the population would be younger than fifteen) have led at least
one Western analyst to suggest that sectoral unemployment among
Mongolia's well-educated youth would be a problem in the 1990s.
Data as of June 1989
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