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employment: rapidly rising real earnings, index linked pay in some sectors, a
minimum wage and graduai réductions in the working week.
Underlining the perceived significance of the conflict resolution, the consultative
element of the planning process had been stepped up during the development and
implementation of the Emergency Action Plans in the immediate post-war period 92 .
More broadly, this illustrâtes the importance of earlier social and politicai
developments on the institutional framework underpinning the Cypriot economy,
seemingly important in assisting a rapid Greek-Cypriot recovery. The extent to
which these developments failed to respond to the long looming politicai crisis
which came to a head in 1974, can only be left here as a moot point. The
corporatist, inclusive, planning strategy also failed to secure one key objective
during post (74) war reconstruction, it failed to encourage and ensure long term
diversification; failed to prevent a récurrence of the domination of the Cypriot
economy by one industry, in one sector, regionally specific, this time limited to the
coastal fringe.
War had briefly shocked the economy with a massive increase in unemployment,
which in turn had briefly reduced the labour supply constraint. However, despite
the very significant success of the Emergency Action Plan 1975-76, the surplus
labour created by the de facto division of the economy could not be immediately
absorbed by the economy, so leaked out in another upsurge in out migration 93 . As a
conséquence of the dislocation of a third of the (mostly rural) population, the rôle
of women in the formal labour market increased. Although direct comparisons are
92 Matsis S. and Charalambous A. (Autnmn) 1989. "Development Planning in Cyprus", The Cyprus
Review. Vol. 1, No.2, pp. 21.
93 "Another important feature of the démographie scene has been the large loss of external migrants,
particularly in the years of politicai strife. For example, during the two years following 1974
émigration eliminated more than the whole of the naturai increase in population." House, W.J 1982.
Population. Empiovment Planning and Labour Force Mobilitv in Cvprus. (Terminal Report).
Nicosia: Planning Bureau & Dept. of Statistics and Research, p. 4.
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