Shock for Soviets

The incomes and living standards of Soviet workers are low by Western standards, but the Soviet constitution guarantees every Soviet citizen a job. By and large the Kremlin, which ceaselessly cites joblessness in the West as a violation of a fundamental human right, delivers on that promise. There are always a certain number of people between jobs, but long-term unemployment is essentially unknown.

Against this background it is intriguing to note the warning last week by a leading Soviet economist that the Soviet Union will soon face mass layoffs affecting at least 10 million people.

Vladimir G. Kostakov, deputy director of a leading economic institute in Moscow, noted that at present the economy “is saturated with manpower . . . . Two and three people are employed in factories and offices where one could do the work.”

Writing in the party journal Komunist, Kostakov said that current plans call for a major increase in productivity. If the goals are met, the number of industrial workers should drop by 13% to 20% in the 15-year period ending in 1996. He warned that adequate preparations have not been made for relocating the millions of workers who will lose their jobs.

The Soviet regime has not even admitted the existence of unemployment since 1930, when the problem was declared solved. (The “right to work” is actually an obligation to work; refusal to work is a criminal offense.) Since unemployment does not officially exist, there has been no unemployment-compensation system.

However, full employment has been achieved only through massive overstaffing, which contributes to slack work discipline, bad work habits, low productivity and high production costs.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s blueprint for economic reform calls for the modernization of Soviet industry and the closing of uneconomic enterprises. But what is to be done with redundant workers? A taste of things to come emerged in November, 1985, when Pravda reported that officials thrown out of work by a reorganization of agricultural management would receive full pay for three months if they were unable to find jobs--an unprecedented move.

The prospect of large-scale disruptions in the work force was mentioned cautiously by Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov at the Communist Party Congress last March. Now economist Kostakov reports that difficulties already are being experienced in the reemployment of displaced workers. He proposes ambitious retraining programs, channeling of more workers into service industries, and a “special fund” to tide over jobless workers.

In principle the tightly planned Soviet economy should be better able than capitalist societies to deal with worker relocation problems. But Soviet workers and their bosses have been taught all their lives that unemployment is something that happens only under capitalist exploitation. Most have never had to risk being fired for unsatisfactory job performance. Their housing is frequently tied to their place of employment; loss of a job presumably can mean an involuntary move from one apartment to another--even one city to another.

The uprooting of millions of Soviets in the pursuit of economic efficiency will represent a fundamental, ideologically painful change. If not well handled, it could trigger widespread unrest among workers and industrial managers. Other reform-minded Communist governments have shied away from taking the plunge; it remains to be seen whether Gorbachev and his Politburo colleagues are any more willing to bite this particular bullet.