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China beats USA at job losses too! |
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2004-7-13
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According to a study conducted by The Conference, manufacturing job losses in China were more than that of the United States.
During the economy period 1995 and 2002, China lost 15 million manufacturing jobs, compared with 2 million in the US, according to the report released recently.
“As its manufacturing productivity accelerates, China is losing jobs in manufacturing – many more than the United States is – and gaining them in services, a pattern that has been playing out in the developed world for many years,” concludes The Conference Board study.
Says Matthew Spiegelman, Economist at The Conference Board and co-author of the study, “The U.S. lost 202,000 textile jobs between 1995 and 2002, a tremendous decline by any measure. But China lost far more jobs in this sector –1.8 million. All told, 26 of China’s 38 major industries registered job losses between 1995 and 2002.”
The study points out that while developed countries’ jobs are being offshored to China, exports are only one piece of China’s industrial expansion.
In addition to the losses in textile manufacturing, industries with the highest job losses included steel processing (557,000), machinery (588,000), and non-metal mineral products (429,000).
The manufacturing sector repeats the same pattern in terms of job loss. Only three manufacturing industries namely electronics and telecommunications (374,000), garments (160,000), and leathers and furs (129,000) displayed reversal of trends. However, these figures were mostly achieved in firms involving some kind of foreign ownership.
State-owned enterprises were in for ‘fast’ downsizing, in particular, with over 12 million jobs lost between 1995 and 2002 in the industrial sector alone.
But the upsizing of private sector enterprises was substantial – almost 9 million new jobs – the net loss in jobs in China’s industrial sector was still over 4 million jobs. While there has been much discussion about offshoring high-wage jobs from the U.S. to low-wage countries like China, the loss of large numbers of manufacturing jobs is actually occurring in both countries simultaneously. |
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