How could a state with a workforce of 150 million manage to employ everyone?
Also, what about inequality? did a doctor get paid much more than a simple industrial worker?
Unemployment in the Soviet Union is difficult to track because the government claimed to 'liquidate' unemployment in the mid 1930's and didn't have reliable information or numbers. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, many of the few records were lost so it's hard to give exact numbers, but there are some things that we do know.
Basically, it can generally be said that the USSR did a fairly good job of employing people until after WWII when the war machine started ramping down. This isn't that that striking considering that is the pattern that most of the world took although it can be noted that the USSR did fare well during the 1929 depression and kept employment up.
Source:https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/pre1998/1992-806-36-2-Moskoff.pdf (this is definitely worth a read, very interesting)
Hi there, the mod team has already had to remove several responses in this thread because we do not allow personal anecdotes. While they're sometimes quite interesting, they're unverifiable, impossible to cross-reference, and not of much use without more context. This comment explains the reasoning behind this rule.
Please, if you're coming here to post, take the time to better familiarize yourself with the rules, and take these key points into account before crafting an answer:
Thank you!
Also, in USSR being unemployed was a criminal offense under article 209 of the criminal code. Joseph Brodsky was persecuted for it, for example.