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February 26, 2008
The traveling band
This from the Times of London earlier this month -- Search goes on for cheapest labour - Times Online:
The deindustrialisation of Western countries has led to multinational companies trawling the world like a “travelling band” in search of cheaper labour, according to the chief executive of Alcoa.
Klaus Kleinfeld said that there had been “fundamental changes” in where and how firms sought blue-collar labour. He said: “Those types of changes were probably seen first when there was a big debate around the deindustrialisation of Western countries, and interestingly this seems to continue.
“You actually have labour-intense industries very often that moved away from the US to Mexico, and if you go today to Mexico you’ll see that there are industries that have moved away from Mexico to SouthEast Asia.
“So it looks like it’s a travelling band almost that goes around the world and always looks for ‘where can we get the additional cost benefit from lower labour costs?’ A very interesting and very critical development, but one that we have to accept and probably have to live with.”
Rare for the CEO of a major company to admit this.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at February 26, 2008 11:57 AM
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