The growth of employment in the 1960-69 period varied widely among the different industry branches. Whereas the number of employed rose by 60 percent for centrally administered industry as a whole, it increased by almost 2.4 times in the chemical branch, somewhat more than doubled in the production of cellulose and paper, and grew by 80 percent in nonferrous metallurgy and in machine building and metalworking. The lowest increases in employment occurred in the production of fuels, in ferrous metallurgy, and in the manufacture of glass and china. The increases in employment did not necessarily correspond to the priority ratings of the individual branches; high priority branches received relatively much larger investment. The labor force is numerically redundant but qualitatively inadequate for the needs of modern industry. Despite the existence of labor training programs, there is a shortage of skilled personnel at the intermediate level, such as technicians and foremen. Few workers have professional school training; most acquire their skills through short courses or on-the-job training. The number of skilled workers is too small to allow efficient two-shift operation of plants throughout most of industry. The lack of adequate skills and the associated inept handling and poor maintenance of imported sophisticated machinery have been responsible for frequent breakdowns. The resultant work stoppages and the under-utilization of available capacity have had a deleterious effect on productivity. Because of a high rate of investment and large-scale imports of advanced Western technology and equipment, productivity per worker nevertheless has been rising at a relatively rapid rate. According to official data, productivity in industry increased by an annual average of 7.5 percent in the 1960-69 period, but the increase in 1969 was less than 5 percent. Official plans for the 1971-75 period call for an annual growth in productivity of at least 7.3 percent. Western economists, however, estimated the rise in productivity to have been only 5.6 percent per year in the 1960-67 period, compared to an official figure of 8 percent. Despite the impressive gains, productivity in industry remains low, mainly because of the inadequate qualifications and work habits of the labor force and the shortcomings of industrial organization and management.