Abstract
By examining the figure 1 and other figures, we can distinguish three stages in the period after the end of world war II with respect to the seasonal fluctuation of the construction labor in Japan. (I) The end of war (1944)-1950 In this stage, the ordinary seasonal pattern of construction workers does not appear, as seen in the figure 1. Economic conditions have not yet recovered enough just after the perfect destruction of the cities by the war. Because of many unemployed laborers in the cities and the relative richness of the farmers in the rural areas, the farmers did not shift to construction industry during their off-seasons. The high peaks at the end of 1949 and 1950 are thought to have been caused by the seasonal increase of demans including the governmental construction works. (II) 1951-1960 In 1951, the two troughs caused by the two busy seasons of agricultural production appear at first and contunue to be almost stable until 1960. In this stage of the figure 1, the amount of seasonal fluctuation increases as the total number of construction workers increases. In these ten years, construction companies could increase their amount of works without facing the serious shortage of construction labors. (III) 1961-present After 1960, the seasonal pattern begins to shift to left as shown in the figure 2 or figure 3 and the pattern becomes gradually flat. In this stage, the construction company had to change their methods of construction to face with the shortage of labor and at the same time the demand began to adapt themselves to the seasonal pattern of construction labor, as the figure 6 suggests.
