ial branches, average annual
wages ranged from 2,009 leva in the production of coal and petroleum to
1,196 leva in the manufacture of clothing. Wages in collective industry
were generally lower than in state industry; the difference between the
average annual wages in these sectors was 12 percent.

Industrial productivity and growth have suffered from a shortage of
trained workers and technical personnel. The supply of skilled workers
in the fall of 1972 was reported to be only half the number needed to
fill available positions. Responsibility for this situation has been
placed, in part, on the lack of coordination between the industrial
ministries and the Ministry of National Education concerning technical
and vocational training programs. There has been a pronounced
disproportion in the numbers of trainees in the various technical
specialities, and technical training generally has not been up to the
level demanded by modern technology. Enterprises themselves have been
slow in undertaking to train their own workers. The scarcity of skilled
personnel has been accentuated by the export of trained workers to the
Soviet Union to help develop the exportation of mineral and timber
resources in return for raw material imports.

Poor labor discipline and excessive labor turnover have aggravated the
shortage of skilled workers. The turnover has been particularly high
among younger workers. Dissatisfaction with the job, or with living and
transportation conditions, and the search for better pay have been cited
as the main reasons for the turnover. Progressively severe measures have
been introduced to enforce stricter labor discipline, but their
effectiveness has been weakened by lax application. One of these
measures concerning movement of labor gave workers the right to quit
their jobs freely but stipulated that any worker seeking reemployment
had to do so through district labor bureaus set up for that purpose. The
bureaus would direct the job applicants to industries and positions
where labor was most urgently needed. Because of the shortage of skilled
labor, however, enterprise managers continued to hire new labor without
regard to the requirements of the law.

The shortage of adequately trained personnel adversely affects the
utilization of available capacity; it entails frequent breakdowns of
machinery and inhibits multishift operation of plants. More than 20
percent of worktime is usually lost through idling, and equipme