by Hrabrin Bachev
The goal of this article is to identify contemporary modes, factors and efficiency of labor supply in Bulgarian farms. Interdisciplinary New Institutional Economics methodology is incorporated and analysis made of new representative micro data collected from the managers of farms of different type and locations. The study found out that there has been enormous development in labor supply governance in Bulgarian farms during the last two decades. The permanent employment is major form for labor supply in farms, flowed by the seasonal and the part-time employments. Owners and family members accounts for the largest share of the total workforce. Different forms are used (high recurrence of contract between with same person, output-based compensation, use of service supply or inputs contracts, etc.) to reduce transaction costs of labor and overall governance of farms. The reasons for using employment contracts and importance of different labor supply and governance modes, intensity of transactions, types of partners, and kinds of remuneration varies considerably depending on juridical type, size, specialization, and locations of holdings. The most important problems in hiring labor are the lack of labor in the labor market, the high price of hired labor, requirement to pay social payments, pay-holidays, etc., big turnover of workers, high costs for adapting official labor standards, high costs for controlling of hired labor (cheating, stealing, etc.), high costs for negotiating conditions of employment, high costs to find good workers, low qualification of hired labor, advance age of hired labor, requirement for signing a written contract, and insufficient initiatives of workers. For a significant number of Bulgarian farms, the amount of costs for finding needed labor, and the amount of costs for managing the hired labor and workers in the farm are factors strongly restricting development of their enterprise. The Econ Dev Glob Mark 2 latter is particular important for a good proportion of major commercial farms like cooperatives, physical persons, and corporations, a to a lesser extent to sole traders.
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