Human Resources in Macro-Comparative Productivity Trends in Asia

Human resources have recently come to occupy the focal point in economic development in the work of international organizations. The paper divides resources into material (including technology) and human resources and asserts that past theories of economic growth paid title attention to human resources because technology was not as varied and complex as today. But with the electric/gas and electronic revolutions completely replacing the simple technologies of the first industrial revolution of steam-powered technologies, the number and complexity of mechanized and other technologies have multiplied so many times that the human resources required to operate, repair, maintain, reproduce, adapt and development then have made institutions and human resources operating through institutions the crucial factor in the growth of the modern economy. This is illustrated by the rapid growth of Japan and the NICs, all of whom started the post-war decade with minimal amounts of natural and other material resources. (Capital with the embodied technology was destroyed in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea by the U.S. bombardment during the last war). But the development of manpower before World War II in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea through homes, schooling, and experience in modern agriculture and industry and in Hong Kong and Singapore in the highly developed service industries, and in the postwar decades was so much greater than in other countries where the colonial regimes were concerned mainly with plantation agriculture. The paper points out that the schooling is only one resource of human resource development and the importance of the home, working place, mass media and community organizations as sources of human resources must be taken into account, with their integration and coordination in planning for the development of human resources.