An artical in this week’s Washington Post related directly to what we’ve been talking about in class. The unemployment rate, according to the article, is lower than it has been scince 2001. Bieng bellow 5% it is considered the optimal level of employment, espacially when considering that many are unable to work. Job loss in industry has been more that offset by higher end service jobs in areas such as finance (as the math geaks of the world breath a collective sigh of relief). One of the things that still bothers me about this outlook is that it seams to be almost temporary. Yes, as of we can keap the high scale jobs, but for how long? The huge potential supply of cheap labor in China is also such that it has the possibility of distrupting labor markets for a long time; delaying and lowering the international equilibrium predicted by economic theory. It is estimated that China currently has a workforce of 328 million in the areas of agriculture, forestry, and fishing, with a growth rate of -5 from 1990 to 2000. Still, their is .39 hectars per laborer; a hectar bieng equal to only 2.471 feat! China’s growing population adds to the concern; in the 90’s the number of rural non-farm jobs increased by 57 million, while the number of farm workers decreased by only 5 million. Although this problem is bieng addressed, China’s growth rate for 2006 was still as high as 0.56. The supply of Chinease labor keaps on going, with the possibility of draging american benifits down even further.
As a side note, one of the things that I found most striking about the web site I found my information from was the focus it put on education in rural areas in china in order to increase worker productivity, and theirfor enhance wages, and the ecconomy as a whole. We all strive for betterment, even if the chinease just have lower standards in what is considered an uppen level job -for the moment…
