The Cheap Labor Parties
What's the plan, America?
I'd like to think we could dramatically improve the economy with a higher minimum wage.
But on my mind is the 32 cents an hour minimum wage in Haiti.
The gap is enormous.
And I see a new wave of cheap labor coming. Not outsourcing, but hiring analytical and information staffers in cheap-labor countries for 1/3 or less as direct employees. In addition to the recent pitches I've received to outsource to contractor firms, there's new pitches now to set up staff in low-cost countries. Hundreds of college grads apply, they say. Good English skills. Working in our systems as our employees. But you can hire three for the price of one.
On attrition, so no guilt about layoffs. Just nameless non-hired people, who will go look for other jobs in an ever-diminishing pool of meager opportunity.
This is a coming wave. Parcel out work using technology. Not just call centers but management positions, engineers, analysts, planners, buyers.
It's the dominance of capital over labor.
In the early 1900s, there was worry among elites about overproduction. They invented consumer credit, marketing, modern advertising, and government-led efforts to stimulate consumption.
Automation, and the absence of barriers to tapping into global cheap labor supply, could triple unemployment, over time. Wages will continue their decline. I don't think any mainstream political figures can stop this. Maybe slow it a little, maybe soften the blows somewhat. But the race to the bottom isn't slowing down. It's expanding into new arenas.
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