The World - News from July 2, 1987

Yugoslavia’s Communist government, seeking to avoid labor unrest, postponed until Sept. 30 a bankruptcy law meant to improve sagging economic performance by closing unprofitable enterprises. Economists have estimated that closing all money-losing firms would leave a quarter of the nation’s industrial work force unemployed. The national jobless rate is already 17%, and the rate in some depressed areas is as high as 50%. Wage cuts enacted in February in an attempt to stem an annual inflation rate of 100% resulted in a wave of brief strikes in which more than 90,000 workers took part.