Over the past two decades, labor has become increasingly globalized. The integration of China, India, and the former Eastern bloc into the world economy, together with population growth, has led to an estimated fourfold increase in the effective global labor force, which could more than double again by 2050. (Willis, 1998). The first wave of outsourcing began with the exodus to developing countries of the manufacturing of shoes, cheap electronics, and toys. However, the effects of globalization did not stop there. With advances in technology, and the growth of the internet, the demand for unskilled jobs has further decreased. The first wave of outsourcing began with the exodus to developing countries of the manufacturing of shoes, cheap electronics, and toys. With the proliferation of more knowledge work jobs moving overseas, what this means for skilled labor in the United States is unclear.
[...] There is increasingly a level playing field on which First World workers, by and large, must play by Third World rules. More and more, workers in older industrial countries are not only competing with workers in the Third World, there is increasing competition between workers in good and bad jobs, between different sectors and between communities within the industrial core. Globalization has given corporations the social, political and economic power to force working people to expect less from their jobs. Governments have also been active in altering social conditions and individual expectations. [...]
[...] This new type of globalization that we are experiencing is a world economy characterized by centre-periphery relations of domination and exploitation. A few newly industrializing countries, like Brazil and South Korea, may have advanced beyond the typical Third World lot, but some countries in Africa have slipped into what some call the Fourth World. And global powers like the United States still try to dominate the Third World. But despite the continuation of imperialism and the centre-periphery divide, the deepening of global capitalist production relations has brought significant changes to the lives of communities and workers in both the centre and periphery. [...]
[...] The process of deepening globalization which is often pushed under the name of “free trade” is neither free nor about trade, but rather about weakening labor to facilitate cutting labor costs and restructuring production. (Wallulis, 1998). With the deepening globalization of manufacturing production, deindustrialization began to hit Canada in the late 1960s. There were many voices warning us about the specter of this de-industrialization process. By the mid-1970s it appeared that this was indeed the case when, in 1975, Canada became a net exporter of capital, mainly to the United States. [...]
[...] This essay has argued that the forces of globalization have reduced the need and demand for unskilled labor in Canada, thus widening the gap between the rich and the poor, and creating mounting social inequality within this country. Bibliography Cameron, D. & Houle, F. (eds. ) (1985). Canada and the New International Division of Labor. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Hoogvelt, A. (1997). Globalization and the Post-Colonial World: The New Political Economy of Development. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. [...]
[...] The country experienced a deeper and longer recession than the United States and most other industrialized countries in terms of employment and investment. (Merrett, 1996). When we track the destinations of runaway shops, we find that most have transferred operations to the southern United States or the Mexican Maquiladora zone along the Mexico-American border. (Merrett, 1996). The attraction of these “sunbelt” zones as sites for production transfers is clear: wages are lower than in the older industrial zones of the northern United States and Canada, and labor forces are less unionized. [...]
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