In 1983, low-wage competition in China, Vietnam and India brought the Indonesian textile industry to a crisis point.
It should be a thrilling thought for Germans too, since they would then no longer have to worry about low-wage competition.
The reason for this buzz of activity is a fear that Britain's low-skilled workers will fare worse and worse as globalisation intensifies low-wage competition.
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Perhaps no issue today, not even the wage competition that leads to export of manufacturing and support jobs, drives greater hostility to markets, globalization and free international trade.
The book ranges widely: from a quasi-Malthusian discussion of the impact of limited resources to the more familiar territory of how wage competition from emerging economies influences income inequality.
Forcible interventions into immigration were really just forcible interventions into the labor market designed to restrict wage competition, just like unionism, just like mandated 30-hour work weeks or forced retirement or wage floors.
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Wage competition at that level is futile.
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BRC's director-general, says that costs are rising, too, thanks to inflation-busting increases in the minimum wage, intense competition for store sites and the same high fuel bills that have been troubling the shoppers.
It is no longer a manufacturing centre in competition with low-wage countries in the region.
They said that because of this, the U.S. workers' jobs would be jeopardized by competition from low-wage countries with lax labor laws.
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To what extent Leapfrog is a response to genuine market need, as opposed to a piece of industrial policy intended to keep the European garment-making industry alive in the face of competition from low-wage countries, is not yet clear.
These forces are deemed to have brought wage-sapping, job-destroying competition.
Currently, manufacturing wages are hovering around their 2000 level and as The Wall Street Journal notes, high unemployment and rising global competition means that employers are able to wring wage and benefit concessions from unions and employees in order to avoid outright job cuts, making the sector as a whole less attractive to potential hirees.
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Tougher competition from abroad, weaker unions and a minimum wage that, despite recent increases, is much lower now in real terms than it was two decades ago, have made a difference too.
The public finances may be solid (public debt is around 40% of GDP), but the government has been slow to make reforms such as trimming a high minimum wage, reducing the size of the unregistered economy and increasing competition to reduce energy and other costs.
Companies would have competition from companies in foreign countries, which can pay less than the U.S. minimum wage, for example China.
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