American and Canadian Industry Today - Case Study Example

American and Canadian Industry Today Introduction: Since the last few decades the global economic and financial scenario has been focusing over two nations, namely, Canada and the United States of America. Even after the drastic downfall of America’s financial and economic conditions it is still known as one of the global economic superpowers and the main reason behind this is the reputation of the American industries and diversifications towards the changing economic situation across the globe. Canada, on the other hand, has emerged as one of the most promising nations due to its capacity in orienting the nature of its industries according to the dynamic nature of global demand. While the recent economic recess across the globe affected the United States financial sector to a great extent and consequently, also affected the American industries, Canada on the other hand, has proved to be promising and capable enough to continue with its industrial progress. However, in the post economic recess era, while the US industries are showing the potential to retain their lost glory, collaboration and mutual support between both nations, in terms of resources and technologies have proved to be positive. The boon of globalization has provided both nations with scope to support each other so that the process of survival becomes easier in the highly competitive business scenario. While respective industrial prosperity of both Canada and US is dependent on export and import between these two nations, financial cooperation between United States and Canada has not shown much positivism since last few years. However, with the intention to make the situation better in terms of respective financial assistance in February 2010, Prime Minister of Canada Stifen Harper and President of the United States Barack Obama made cooperative deal which focused on exploring avenues of free trade among the two countries and for the public works the reciprocity in government procurement programs. It is quite clear from governmental policies of both these nations that they are providing a greater deal of importance over the aspect of mutual coexistence in terms of trade and financial assistance, compared to earlier times. It has been realized by either of the nations that the process of mutual cooperation is continued, it will be quite challenging for them to retain position of their industries in the highly competitive market. Industrial Back ground of USA: The United States of America is known as the high ranked nation is all the prospective. Who’s GDP is one of the highest among the developed nations ( $ 14.266 trillion (2009)) .( World Per Capita Total Primary Energy Consumption,1980-2005 (MS Excel format) ). And the reason behind this is the success of the industrial advancement and achievement of this country. Few of the main industries in USA is Petroleum, steel, motor vehicles, aerospace, telecommunications, chemical, creative industries, electronics, food processing, mining and obviously defense. The main reason behind the most industrially advanced nation is the large unified market, a supportive political-legal system, vast areas of highly productive farm land, huge natural resources mainly rich timber, coal and obviously oil and definitely cultural influences toward the advancement and towards the entrepreneurialism mentality. The success of industrial advancement pulled many immigrants towards USA and the reason for this is the industries in USA have maintained the high wages and employee satisfactions at per to the profitability of the industries. The main industrial sectors in USA: The main industrial sectors of the United States are energy, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, information technology, industries related to international trade and export. Energy: USA is one of the largest energy consumers in the world. The US ranked seventh in energy consumption after Canada. The major power comes from the petroleum industries, and the energy sectors are coal, natural gas and nuclear power. Agriculture: Agriculture is another major industry for the US economy and the major part of its crop production comes from the highly productive farmlands, resulting in making US as one of the major crop producing hubs across the world. Due to its high range of agricultural production it controls almost the half of the world’s grain exports. (Press Release, January 10, 2005). Few of the agricultural industrial foods are wheat, corn, fruits, vegetables, beef, pork, poultry and definitely the high quality forest products. Manufacturing: Manufacturing is one of the main industry is USA, it is the world’s largest manufacturer, the industrial output of manufacturing industry were around US$ 2.5 trillion. Few of the main dominating manufacturing industries in USA are Petroleum, Steel, Motor Vehicle, consumer goods and also mining. But even though the manufacturing is one of the main traditional industries it has started to take the blow of the changes, one in six manufacturing jobs in manufacturing industries in USA have been faded or lost since the beginning of 2007 (Crutsinger, April 20, 2007). Car manufacturing or the auto mobile industries have received a great deal of impetus during the early 19th century. However, economic recess at different points of time has affected manufacturing industry considerably but its progress has never ceased. Finance: Financial and Banking sector of the United States is one of the strongest industries in the world, even though it has got the punch of financial crunch but still the New York Stock Exchange is the largest stock exchange in the world by the market value of the listed companies securities. (Economic Outlook Database, n.d.). NASDAQ is another American stock exchange where 3,800 companies taking part on it. International Trade based industries: United States is the world’s largest trading nation and it is the worlds leading importer as well as exporter and that is the reason the US currency that is Dollar is mostly circulated currency and known as the standard unit of currency in the international market. IT Industry: Information Technology is one of the main industries in United States now, even through most of the service oriented jobs are outsourced to the countries like India, China, Philippines and Brazil, but the main part that is developing the software is mainly fabricated in United States. And the Information Technology is one of the future industries in US. The advancement of the IT in United States in the main reason for the brain drain in many upcoming Countries as the wages are high and the prospects of growth is also very prospering in United states. The industrial scenario in Canada: Being the neighboring country of USA Canada is also one of the financial powerhouses of the world, ranking among the top 15 wealthiest nations in the world it has the ability to prove the world that it is also not far behind than USA. It is having the DGP of $ 1.600 trillion in 2010 (Statistics Canada, May, 31, 2010), which almost is same as the USA. But due to some administrative backdrop it is not treated at per with USA. But according to performance of the last few years mainly during the downfall of the USA Canada performed very well and it has proved that it is pretty stable than USA. Industrial growth and advancement is being the main propose of this country and that is the reason it is always on the go for new industries as well as for the technical advancement of their traditional industries. Few of the main industries in Canada are. Transportation equipments, chemicals,minerals,food products , petroleum , steel, natural gas and definitely forest products and one of the main business and industry in Canada is International trading and that is export import Business which id the backbone of the financial strength of Canada. Energy: Canada is among the few developed nation which belongs to the main exporters of energy. The huge Athabasca Oil Sands had given Canada the world’s second largest reserve of oil after Saudi. For having the huge source of energy Canada is one of the world’s largest consumer of energy (Environment Canada - Energy Consumption). For this huge consumption rate as well as having the optimal resources for energy it has a huge potential in the energy industry which basically falls under the manufacturing of energy. Agriculture industry: Agriculture is always proven as the back bone of all the economies and it is the most traditional industry for most of the countries, same worked for Canada in proper manner. It is one of the largest suppliers of agricultural products. The wheat and some other grains are the main products in the agricultural industries. As it is one of the largest producer of agricultural products is has put it self as one of the major exporter of agricultural products. The main reason behind the improvement and the consistent performance towards agriculture is mainly for the support of the Canadian Government towards their agriculture. Canada has always supported the agricultural industry either by the subsidy from their government or by the Who Trade Organization (WTO). Manufacturing: Manufacturing the main traditional industry in Canada as it is in most of the countries. In the recent past the manufacturing industries have gone down toward the existence of the industries, but Canada have proven that even in the down fall of the manufacturing era a country can bring back the essence of manufacturing with the help of advancement. Although the manufacturing in Canada was hit by the global crisis in 2007-09 it has given around 13% of Canada’s GDP (Statistics Canada, May, 31, 2010). Central Canada is the main hub for most of the American Automobile makers. Central Canada produces more automobiles than most of its neighboring cities. Irrespective of the fact that car manufacturing industry is traditionally considered as one of the most important business sectors in Canada, however, gradually it is losing its reputation both in the national and international context. Service based industries: The service based industries in Canada have a vast expansion and those are multilayered and multifunctional in nature. This industry accounts for the two third of the Canadian GDP Canada being the top most country for telecom and satellite and digital equipments it has got the large base of service oriented companies which helps the world to get the best customer care ever possible. Among the top employers of the Canada is the retail sector. The retail industry is consist of large number of small chains of stores and obviously supper stores and malls. Few of the retail giants in Canada are Wal-Mart (which basically from US), Future shop, etc. The second largest service based industry is banking and real estate. This sector is mainly centered in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The other upcoming service based industries in Canada are Health, Education and tourism. Comparative Analysis among the two countries: Being ranked among the top developed and wealthiest nations US and Canada have shown many industrial advancements and new policies towards the advancement of each of the countries. Both the countries are the great support to each other in all the respects. Both the countries use their resources with the help of free trade that is mostly duty free export import. But the strong growth of the international trade since the last decade was not sustained among the Canada’s merchandise trade with the US. Canada’s export is been down that it’s import for the last few years. Overall it’s international trade with USA in 2008 (67.8% of total trade) was deepened by 5.3% from the years of 2005 (Dfait, 2009, p. 39). Even though USA and Canada are know as the most well known stable economy and they are very supportive to each other but for the last few 5 years show a fading trends towards the manufactured product exports and a positive gain in energy and mineral exports. The Canadian industries are hoping that the financial and economic restoration of the United States would bring back some industrial advancement as well as some good opportunity towards the future, but another challenge for the future Canadian export two US lies in the high value of the Canadian Dollar (Moens, April, 2010). In the recent scenario the Economic conditions of USA have shown some positive comebacks. The new emerging industries in USA are Biotechnology and alternative energy. Conclusion: Even though both the countries are the most developed nations in the world but still they are facing the pinch of the pressure of changing business scenario. The recent pressure towards the fundamental industries of both the countries has compelled them to change their HR policies towards the changing scenario. The pressure of change and advancement have created the new demand in the industrial field and they are, labor cost moderation, improved productivity, flexibility in the use of human resource management, highly motivated and multitasking labor force and sustained innovation in labor management relations al the all level of the industry. Recently Canada’s completion policy has been redone to attract the global investors and to compete with the strong contenders like USA, but the law and its administrations are still in the evolutionary stage lagging far behind the global realty. Canadian firms need some smart shifts towards having the long term relationship with their old customers. It needs some visionary steps to get the opportunity to be the greatest industrial nation (Atkinson, and Coleman, 1989). However the shift toward the change has been started to show in both the countries. And for that reason the new emerging industries in both the countries are Education, Sports, Heath and tourism. These new industries would portray them as the wealthiest countries in near future. References Atkinson, M.M. and Coleman, W.D. (1989). The state, business, and industrial change in Canada Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Crutsinger, M. (April 20, 2007). “Factory Jobs: 3 Million Lost Since 2000”. Available at: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8OKGR480&show_article=. Accessed on: 28. 06. 2010. Moens, A. (April, 2010). “Skating on thin Ice Canadian-American Relations in 2010 n 2011”. Alberta: Fraser Institute. Press Release. (January 10, 2005). “The Food Bubble Economy”. Nottingham: The Institute of Science in Society. Available at: http://www.energybulletin.net/node/4070. Accessed on: 28. 06. 2010. Statistics Canada. (May 31, 2010). “Gross Domestic Product, expenditure based”. Available at: http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/gdps02a-eng.htm. Accessed on: 28. 06. 2010. World Economic Outlook Database. (Jan 26, 2010). “World Economic and Financial Surveys”. Available at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?. Accessed on: 28. 06. 2010. Read More