As of 2008, the war for good jobs has trumped all other leadership activities because it’s been both the cause and the effect of everything else that countries have experienced. This will become even more real in the future as global competition intensifies. If countries fail at creating jobs, their societies will fall apart. Countries, and more specifically cities, will experience suffering, instability, chaos, and eventually revolution. This is the new world that leaders will confront.
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If you were to ask me, from all the world polling Gallup has done for more than 75 years, what would fix the world—what would suddenly create worldwide peace, global well-being, and the next extraordinary advancements in human development—I would say the immediate appearance of 1.8 billion formal jobs. Nothing would change the current state of humankind more.
Leaders’ biggest problem is that an increasing number of people in the world are miserable, hopeless, suffering, and becoming dangerously unhappy because they don’t have an almighty good job—and in most cases, no hope of getting one.
A good job is a job with a paycheck from an employer and steady work that averages 30+ hours per week.
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Comments
Flawed Study?
Why would they start at age 15? I realize in many countries people are working full time at that age, but I would venture that the norm for western countries is, if polled, people aged 15-18, would not be looking for a full time job if they are still a full time student. Doesn't that distort the data?
It's incredibly hard to believe that the global unemployment rate is in excess of 50% (Meaning the rest have part time jobs or no jobs). Can you zero in on the poll results by certain countries and show us how the poll compares to published results in each country? Just a hard concept to swallow without some more information.
How to win some of the jobs battles
The U.S. can win many of the battles in the jobs war by aggressively promoting and implementing reshoring. Balancing the $600B trade deficit will create about 8 million U.S. jobs and help solve the budget deficit problem. Boston Consulting Group recently forecast that by 2015 many products would be more economically produced in the U.S. than imported from China. For the economic trends to have a rapid impact on the behavior of major U.S. companies, however, the companies will have to calculate their total cost of offshoring. Unfortunately, most companies’ calculations are rudimentary, rather than complete, mainly comparing prices rather than the entire cost of offshoring, as reported by Accenture and Archstone Consulting. As a result, companies have offshored more than is in their own self interest.
To help these companies make better sourcing decisions the non-profit Reshoring Initiative, www.reshorenow.org, provides for free a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) software that helps them calculate the real offshoring impact on their P&L. With clear evidence of the fragility of global supply chains, Chinese and other LLCC (Low Labor Cost Country) wages rising rapidly, the U.S. $ declining and oil soaring, this is the perfect time for U.S. companies to reevaluate their offshoring strategies and bring some of the sourcing home.
Readers can bring back jobs by asking their companies to reevaluate offshoring decisions. Suppliers can use the TCO software to convince their customers to reshore.
You can reach me at harry.moser@comcast.net.
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