Impact of Globalisation on the Nature of Work in Developing Countries - Essay Example

? Impact of Globalisation on the Nature of Work in Developing Countries Introduction Globalisation has broughtabout a host of opportunities in the world. While these opportunities continue to be enjoyed, there are many disadvantages which have emanated from the same globalisation. The developing countries seem to be receiving more disadvantages of globalisation than the developed ones, and this is expected to continue. In developing countries, globalisation has caused a number of issues such as affecting employment. Technology and Globalisation The same technology which supports globalisation also triggers the reduction of jobs through technological automation in manufacturing firms.1 As firms from the developed world move to the developing one, they bring with them the various technologies which lead to the automation of production processes. This means that there will be two major things which must be looked at all times. First, there will be fewer employment opportunities for people in the developing world. Technology that comes with globalisation will have taken up the employment opportunities.2 Concurrently, the same technology suggests that only skilled work will be available for workers in the developing world. As technology comes in, only people with professional skills in the developing countries will manage to get jobs because menial labour will have been automated. This is a trend which is seen in the developing countries where the less educated people are now finding it harder to get employment.3 In terms of employment opportunities, globalisation in the long run only helps those who have managed to obtain education. “Education differences have played a big role in turning globalisation opportunities into curse for developing countries”.4 This is a big issue in developing countries because in these countries, few people are educated and thus cannot take advantage of these opportunities brought about by globalisation. Developing countries also have women who are generally much less educated than their male counterparts. This is unlike in the developed world where the gap between the educated males and females is closing up.5 This means that women in developing countries will be affected negatively much more than the male counterparts in the same countries because they are less likely to be able to take up the skilled employment opportunities. Widening Income Gaps There are other disadvantages which come with globalisation. As globalisation creates employment for the skilled people and takes away the same from those who are not professionally trained, this will continue to widen the income gap and these developing countries will end up without a middle class. A country without a middle class is usually at risk of economic and political instabilities, and this is why the issue of globalisation persists.6 Globalisation will continue to expand the gap between the poor and the rich as the few people in the developed countries who have been rich enough to get an education continue to take the top jobs, either locally or even internationally, and be richer, and the majority who do not have an education continue to be jobless and without income.7 Those poor people will not be capable of educating their children, and the trend will continue. On the other hand, the few who are at the top of the socioeconomic ladder will be able to instruct their children, and this means that the few rich will continue to get richer while the majority poor will continue to be poorer. India’s labour market was one of the first to hugely benefit from globalisation as it was the preferred destination for business process outsourcing. As a result of many western camping in Indian cities looking for educated jobless individuals to do their call centre work, many young and educated men benefited and started earning salaries they could not have dreamt of, especially for a call agent. The problem with this was that not everybody in India is educated and when these opportunities came, the gap between the poor and the rich started to widen. Negative Job Practices There is one more issue which has been identified about globalisation. Namely, globalisation operates for the benefit of the very few and very rich corporations in the world. These new firms, especially in the absence of proper international laws, continue to exploit developing countries in terms of their resources, whether human or otherwise.8 These multinational firms are less likely to apply ethical standards in the foreign developing countries where the political and economical environment does not oblige them to do so. This means that people who work for these multinational firms in the developing countries are more likely to have bad working conditions.9 These workers are usually given the least wages and work for firms whose products they cannot afford. So, contrary to what may be thought, the reality of the matter is that globalisation has not helped the developing countries especially with regard to employment. These multinationals are very conservative with regard to the salaries they offer to these workers. Not only do these multinationals offer these poor people low salaries, but they are also overloaded and work under very inhuman conditions. So far, there are no international laws which have been designed to meet the needs of a globalised labour force and those who live in poor countries such as Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Foreign Workers In the developing countries, education levels are usually lower and the local labour market may not be able to provide the multinational firms coming from the developed world with the right skilled labour. These corporations usually do not feel that these local people are able to fill the higher management positions or the highly technical positions such as engineers and accountants. As a result, these firms bring in their own experts from their home countries, and the local people are only given menial jobs within the organisation. For this reason, the multinational firms which go to the developing countries do not give the local people the opportunity to do well in their careers. The worst scenario in this case is that some of these firms hire their expatriates under the pretence that the local population does not have the right qualified individuals to handle the technical jobs. Yet, this is in most cases untrue. Most of them ignore local talents due to prejudice, and this affects the local labour market where even the most educated people are not able to get the right positions and have to do menial jobs or work as technicians. In most cases, these importuned experts may not even have better skills than some of the local individuals who end up working under them as technicians.10 This has been seen in China where local workers even the most educated are seen to be underpaid while the imported expatriates are paid very well. “Yet, even though they are paid lowly, they are just as competent and work even harder than the experts brought from the western world”.11 This has introduced an employment imbalance in the workplace. This kind of imbalance in the employment equation can thrive since most governments in the developing countries do not have good labour laws which will prevent these foreign firms from exploiting the local people.12 Most governments in the developing countries are too absorbed in their own issues of high rates of unemployment that they are afraid of creating employment laws and policies which may scare away these firms, even if the employment they offer the local community will end up affecting their countries in a negative way. Even in cases where there are labour laws, the local authorities are not keen to enforce them as they want to please the multinationals. Regardless of the many disadvantages, there are also some advantages which can be related to the globalisation of labour. To begin with, as many firms go to international markets and distribute their manufacturing and production functions to these developing countries, they create jobs for people who would otherwise be jobless. Despite the fact that these jobs are usually not the cream of the market, a lot of people in the developing world do not really mind the jobs and are happy to earn a little money as opposed to nothing. There are in fact a few jobs which actually affect people in a positive way. In these developing countries, those few people who are lucky enough to get the right jobs are usually able to get much better-paying jobs than if they were for local firms. For instance, computer programmers from eastern countries who can get employment with western firms are able to earn much higher than if they were working for local firms.13 This has helped in closing the income gap by creating a middle class of people and families which have better incomes as a result of the globalisation process. There is, however, criticism on whether this is going to be a long-term or short-term advantage. In cases where these jobs are created by manufacturing firms that have moved to the developing countries, the advantage in the long term have been seen to be short lived as the firms refuse to revise the wages even after it becomes clear that the local employees need to be given a pay rise. Globalisation has also helped in boosting the local employment numbers in developing countries through supporting local businesses. The local businesses in the developing countries can now have access to the global market, which increases their success compelling them to hire more. When the local businesses can increase their capacity as a result of globalisation, they are able not only to hire more employees but also increase the salaries of their employees.14 However, it is also good to note that while globalisation gives firms in the developing world an opportunity to reach the global market, it also exposes the same businesses to competition from larger firms from the developed world. Conclusion Globalisation has both positive and negative impacts. With regard to the labour market, globalisation has brought both favourable and adverse impacts. However, the negative impacts seem to be outweighing the positive ones and, if not put in check, these negative impacts may end up having a serious implication for the global economy rather than only for the developing world. As a result, it is necessary that the issue of globalisation be looked at seriously and any future problems be solved in order to avoid a negative effect on the global economy. 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