Continual recruitment and training of new workers constitutes a significant drain on the efficiency and earnings of industry.
Industrial costs are raised by the instability of the labour force. In most of the less developed countries, there is a constant flux of workers between industrial employment in towns and traditional agriculture in their home villages. People are reluctant to enter permanent employment off the land. They may work only long enough to collect the money they need to pay taxes or to fulfil other obligations; they often become homesick and dissatisfied with their food and quarters, particularly if they have left their wives in the villages; lacking means of expressing their grievances and improving their status, they may move from industry to industry seeking better conditions. Attempts to stabilize the industrial labour force by means of a variety of incentives – holidays with pay contingent upon a certain period of steady work, regular wage increases for those who stay on the job, provision of appropriate facilities for eating, housing, health, education, recreation and so on – have often met with no more than limited success.