The Assignment for the class on the 9th of April, Monday
Topic: Consequences of Globalization – The Labour Market.+ Outsourcing.
1. Read a short introduction to the topic:
Through the globalization the labour market is often no longer national or regional limited, but global. The result is that the labour supply is increasing enormously. The cost of living in Asia is often only 20% of the cost of living in Western Europe. Accordingly great is the difference in wages and salaries.
In many parts of the world the factor labour is much cheaper than in Western Europe. This means that a German worker is not only in competition with other German workers, but also in competition with many workers from around the world who offer their workforce significantly cheaper. This wage gap between Western Europe and many other parts of the world means that many companies simply relocate production activities to low-wage countries. The only way to avoid the competition with millions of unqualified cheap workers is to be high-qualified.
This can be easily observed at the German labour market: While many entrepreneurs have a need for well-trained workforce, many low-skilled unemployed are on the road. These low-skilled workers can’t offer their workforce at the world market price because they wouldn’t get enough money to afford a German standard of living.
For the future it can be assumed that even higher-skilled jobs are relocated to low-wage countries. This can be seen for example at IT companies, employing programmers in India. Also in China the effort to enhance the skills of workers is high: Every year many more students from China finish their studies with a technical degree than students from Germany.
2. Read the following texts and write an overall summary ( 1,5-2pages) for all key facts supported by your own graphs / charts.
Globalisation and the Labour Market
Globalisation of Labour
The number of long-term unemployment is getting bigger each year. People who are not able to find a job longer than 12 month belong to the rate of long-term unemployment. Through this a number of 19% of unemployment comes up. This number is made up by unemployed (7%) and part-time workers (12%) who would like to work more. Because of those facts 1.53 billion people have vulnerable jobs. They work under bad conditions with a low salary.
The most significant countries in terms of long-term unemployment can be seen in the picture on the right
3. Watch the 2 videos and make the key notes and your personal conclusions on each. Make a comparison to the situation in Russia.
Outsourcing: Transforming the World of Business, Driving Globalization
In this video, Jack W. Plunkett discusses the trends, advantages and ideals that make outsourcing such a prominently growing practice—all based on the latest in market research and statistics.
The other side of outsourcing !
Thomas Friedman visited a call centre in Bangalore, interviewing the young Indians working there, and then travelled to an impoverished rural part of India, where he debated the pros and cons of globalization with locals (this trip spawned his eventual best-selling book The World is Flat).
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