Some aspects of rural development with underutilized labour: a case for multiple cropping

Abstract

With the prospect of rapid increase in the labour force in the latter part of the 70's and during the eighties, employment creation (or labour absorption) will become an important development problem facing Malaysian policy-makers. Creation of new employment opportunities is required in order to absorb the new entrants into the labour force, to absorb the existing unemployed and to utilize fully the underemployed. The objective of job creation has been enshrined in the New Economic Policy (NEP). It regards rapid job creation as necessary if "significant progress is to be made in reducing unemployment, redressing poverty, raising rural incomes and ....".