"Save our manufacturing"
...cries the Telegraph, in an editorial seemingly proving that old joke that when your neighbour loses their job its a downturn, when you lose your job its a recession and when a journalist loses their job its a slump.Between them, the Asian giants [India & China] create about a million jobs every year and a factory worker in China earns only about £100 a month, compared with an average monthly salary in this country of about £2,000. And they are not only moving into manufacturing - they are increasingly competing in services, too. We journalists, for instance, might well be concerned that the news agency Reuters is relying more and more on reporters based in Bombay to cover world events.
Nevertheless we have little to fear if India and China, combined population about 2,400 million, can only create one million jobs between them each year. In fact at least until 2002 China was losing more manufacturing jobs than the 17 largest economies (ex China) put together.
Manufacturing employment in the 17 largest economies other than China fell a little more than 7%, from 96 million in 1995 to 89 million in 2002. In contrast, China's fell a whopping 15% in the period, from 98 million in 1995 to 83 million in 2002
posted by Matthew @ 6/17/2005 04:18:00 PM
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