Friends:
I just read the following in the BLS daily report:
An analysis of Department of Commerce data by Dartmouth College
economist Matthew J. Slaughter shows that the domestic share of
employment among U.S.-based multinationals has held steady at around 74
percent for 20 years ....Despite suspicion that multinationals seek
mainly low-wage workers in less-developed countries, nearly two-thirds
of the overseas employees were in developed countries. Some 67 percent
of total sales by foreign affiliates remained within the host country,
and only 10 percent returned to the United States. (The rest went to
third countries.) The pattern indicates that sales, not wages, have
been the principal motivation for establishing foreign affiliates
(Business Week, April 6, page 30).
What do you make of such arguments? The intention is clearly to challenge
analyses that suggest globalizaton is driven be the search for low wages.
One idea that comes to mind is that "employees" needs to be defined. So the
overseas emps. are in dev. countries, but what about all the outsourced and
subcontracted production? How do those folks enter into the picture?
Any thoughts on this?
Tom
