Relationship between Laborers' Skill Formation and Division of Labor in the Ethiopian Leather-shoe Industry

Abstract

Ethiopia is one of few countries whose manufacturing industries have been recording high growth rates in sub-Saharan Africa. The Ethiopian leather-shoe industry has been rapidly growing as well. Before 1991 which was the year of regime change, the number of medium and large enterprises had been only two, but the number increased 21 in 2015. Ethiopia has a complete supply chain of shoes production from raw materials, namely hide and skin, up to final goods with the country being endowed with abundant livestock. This study aims to clarify skill formation and division of labor in the leather-shoe industry as a typical example of high-performing manufacturing sectors in Ethiopia. Generally speaking, human resource is one of the important factors for enterprise development. Therefore, this study attempted to analyze working modes and organization of leather-shoe production. Six enterprises in Addis Ababa were targets of this research. There are differences in both division of labor and skill formation in accordance with enterprise scale. The larger enterprises scale is, the more division of labor are segmented. With regard to skill formation, while all enterprises adopt on-the-job training irrespective of their scale, notably medium-sized and large enterprises organize systematic training programs.