The agricultural economy creates demand both for agricultural labour and for a number of specialised services. Other demands arise from more elementary human needs, more especially houses, domestic utensils and clothes Some of the village population lives by meeting these demands, both by production and trade.
Almost all the work of cultivation is done directly by the household labour of the owner or share-cropper. Only rarely, because of an emergency or miscalculation, or in order to avoid the need to share-crop, does anyone employ agricultural labour. Other jobs - the commonest is building - are available from time to time. Usually the poor or landless take such employment, but people with some standing in the village will work if they have the opportunity, and are short of money for a specific purpose.. In 1950 the rate was T.L.1.5 a day, plus food, (3s 9d., U.S. $0.55) about half the rate for casual labour in the towns.
At harvest time the situation is reversed; the demand for labour is intense. Those who have no harvest of their own may work on a contract for those who have large harvests, either for a share or for a fixed quantity of grain. Others work on a daily basis. As much as T.L.5 (12s. 6d., $1.80) was paid for a full day's reaping.
Prosperous households had another method of recruiting labour. Young men or even married couples were taken on as servants (çirak) on a yearly contract for their keep and a small emolument in cash (p. 61). One orphan from another village was çirak i Elbashï, and one young man of Sakaltutan was çirak in a distant village. Another orphan had been çirak to at least