By Jean Christou
FOREIGN labour has stunted investment in technology and helped to expand low quality tourism, a just-published government study concludes.
Labour Utilisation and Income Distribution in Cyprus also finds that 25 per cent of all Cypriots who complete their studies abroad do not return, women are still grossly under-represented in the workforce, the income gap is widening, and four per cent of Cypriots live below the poverty line.
The study, in book form, comprises papers by ten government experts and deals with what labour analyst Dr Demetris Christodoulou calls “crucial aspects” of the island’s human resources.
He said the book is the second part of a “pioneering contribution” to the economy and society of Cyprus, covering the period 1980 to 1992.
The previous volume found that less than half the population of Cyprus is part of the workforce. This 47 per cent “sustain the economy and maintain both themselves and those in dependency categories”, Christodoulou said. No improvement in this situation is expected by the year 2020.
The current study concludes that the natural growth of population supplied only 45 per cent of new labour in the period under review.
Christodoulou said some Cypriots returned from abroad to fill the gaps but the bulk of the supply of new labour came from the return of women to the workforce, except in industrial sectors needing heavy and cheap labour.
These sectors, Christodoulou said, “resorted to tapping an outside source of cheap and undemanding work force… from poor, mainly developing, countries”.
The study found that some 13 per cent of the workforce in 1992 comprised foreign labour, one third of which is illegal. Christodoulou estimates these figures have since doubled.
The conclusion is that the availability of cheap labour has prevented investment in new technology and modernisation in business dealings, and helped the expansion of low quality tourism, he said.
“Efforts to raise the quality and productivity of labour have come up against the lack of sufficient employment opportunities to attract the young and educated to the labour force,” Christodoulou said, referring to the number of Cypriot graduates who choose to stay abroad.
On the widening income gap, the study found it to be still moderate compared to other developing and developed countries.
The poorest four per cent in Cyprus were deemed to be older single women with little education.
But Christodoulou said the figures show that even the poorest households had a refrigerator and a cooker and to a lesser extent a washing machine.
He believes the study is essential reading for policy makers but noted that those who compiled it were “very reserved and cautious in their judgment of policy implications”.
“This may reflect the public service status of the authors,” he said.
