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The destruction of the Middle Classes commences
Comments
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amcluesent wrote: »
I mean of course, professional, salaried employees in finance, HR, IT, R&D, marketing etc. Their annoyingly high salaries, generous T&C and pension liabilities are preventing the top-team getting a further 25% on their 'performance bonus'. So they must and will be smashed, like the miners.
I work in IT and I earn a modest salary.
I only wish it WAS "annoyingly high".
My employment T&Cs are fairly standard and as for pension liabilities, the company I work for is small enough that it can't afford to make any contributions to my pension.FACT - everyone who uses a computer for their work is now scuppered. There's millions who are younger, faster, cheaper in Lithuania/India/China/Chile who will be doing your job within 5 years.
What proof do you have for this?
Menial customer service jobs might be offshored, but there are significant problems with that approach which tends to lead to cost overruns, project delays and an inferior product delivered to the end customer.
I've seen it in several companies and no doubt I'll see it over and over again.0 -
The Chinese authorities (and those in Philippines, India etc etc and all the other 'cheap' sources of labour) do NOT keep wages artificially low. There are no government mandates on what wages should be in those countries.
The government controls the means of production in many cases. The government regulates labour policy. The government through its fixed exchange rate policy determines what the price of labour will be in real terms to foreign consumers.What keeps wages relatively low in China is the literally tens of millions of rural people ready to take on new jobs at a moments notice. It's classic supply and demand.
So a comparison with most developing countries and the UK that says our problem is that we don't compete hard enough is completely invalid then...0 -
The government controls the means of production in many cases. The government regulates labour policy. The government through its fixed exchange rate policy determines what the price of labour will be in real terms to foreign consumers.
So a comparison with most developing countries and the UK that says our problem is that we don't compete hard enough is completely invalid then...
Oh come on . . you're stretching credulity here. The government regulates labour policy and the exhange rate, ergo it puts a cap on chinese labour costs? Good grief. The fact remains - the Chinese government (like other outsourcing hub governments) does NOT control the cost of labour, otherwise it would not allow the cost of labour to be increasing at such a vast rate over the last two years.
The UK workforce needs to find new ways to compete. It can no longer compete on price and it hasn't been able to for a long time. What is happening now previously happened with shipbuilders, coalminers etc. The workforce adapted, learnt new skills, developed new services etc. It is not for no reason that there are more people in work now than at any other point in history.
Me? Well, I'm bullish on the future for the UK. We adapted before and we will adapt again. If you can't compete directly on cost for low grade menial tasks, then you find new ways of competing.
Simple as that.0 -
I think UK people do have the skills to compete, I truly do. I just think underlying living costs are way out of alignment with the countries we have to compete with, and a big proportion of this is providing a roof over our head.
I don't think the living costs in Germany are that much different than the UK, It is lack of investment that is the problem.'Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers visible or invisible giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the worlds wealthiest and most prosperous people' Margaret Thatcher0 -
The destruction of the Middle Classes commences
Still here btw. Middle class, head stuck in the sand, but somehow Armageddon and the Four Horseman didn't make it up my back passage today.0 -
Even the legal profession is not exempt. Foreign solicitors with UK accreditation can quite easily offer services from overseas, especially now with the internet.
It is strange how the exported culture/language/legal system is coming back to bite us on the bum :eek:'Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers visible or invisible giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the worlds wealthiest and most prosperous people' Margaret Thatcher0 -
Oh come on . . you're stretching credulity here. The government regulates labour policy and the exhange rate, ergo it puts a cap on chinese labour costs? Good grief.
You dispute the fact that the both the local cost of labour and the exchange rate contribute towards the real cost of Chinese labour for non-Chinese?Me? Well, I'm bullish on the future for the UK. We adapted before and we will adapt again. If you can't compete directly on cost for low grade menial tasks, then you find new ways of competing.
Simple as that.
That's not what the OP was talking about...he's talking about skilled jobs/professions being outsourced, not "low grade menial" jobs.0 -
We have no god-given right to be rich or a wealthy nation. We are losing our competitiveness and - frankly - the inflated self of worth and entitlement of our work force - both blue and white collar - has a lot of the blame to accept.
I assume that includes you as well.'Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers visible or invisible giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the worlds wealthiest and most prosperous people' Margaret Thatcher0 -
Awesome attitude towards life. Will you marry me?
She is pretty good at predicting the GG's as well, a good catch, if she actually is a women, you never know in here
'Just think for a moment what a prospect that is. A single market without barriers visible or invisible giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the worlds wealthiest and most prosperous people' Margaret Thatcher0 -
And because there is a trained labour force keen and willing to work for less than it would cost to employ a Japanese worker.
If low wages were the reason, Japanese multinationals would have built car factories in far cheaper countries than the UK.And a reduction in transport costs.
Not really that significant unless production is vertically integrated in one country – there will always be parts shipped from overseasAnd government support to build new highly efficient plant.
That is a form of protectionism...0
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