Largely ignored by lame-stream media, tensions have been rising between Japan & China. Against that background, Japanese manufacturer Canon has suddenly decided to shut down a plant in China making printers. The factory was launched about 25 years ago and once employed over 10,000 people. Now it is down to around 1,600 people, shortly to be zero.
Of course, part of this is the move of Japanese companies to lower wage countries like Vietnam and the Philippines – a move which Chinese companies themselves are also following, perhaps explaining China’s growing youth unemployment problem.
Interestingly, Japanese companies are still investing in China, but their new highly automated factories require many fewer workers.
Of course, all of these efforts to move production to low-wage countries are based on the willingness of the formerly-wealthy West to keep importing the products. “Free Traders” import willingly with no compensating tariffs, since they completely ignore the other side of the transaction – the consumers in the formerly wealthy Western countries need jobs to be able to buy these cheaper imported products.
Strangely, the worsening situation facing workers in Western “democratic” countries does not seem to be a concern of the Political Class. It will be interesting to see if China’s form of rule does a better job of balancing society … although so far the Communist leadership does not seem to be doing a better job than the Western grifter Political Class.
DUST is a marginal cinematic expression of young adults which I started watching today episode 7 season 1 while exercise bike. I’m on the third short which like the first is about being unable to find a job and facing existential crises.
Here is another report about the deteriorating employment situation in China. Read it, of course, with the understanding that Chinese government statistics are no more reliable than the figures which the Biden Administration used to publish.
China is outsourcing tech work to India, shipping manufacturing jobs to Vietnam, and replacing high-paid workers with AI – essentially the same processes which US leaders have pursued for decades … and we all know where that leads. It may help maintain the profitability of individual companies, but it weakens the country’s economy and undermines social stability.
Economically, China has gained over the last half-century from being a “fast follower”, adopting what has worked for other countries and avoiding some of those countries’ mistakes. However, the current developments suggest that China has not found an alternative to the failing Western path. The West has tried to disguise youth unemployment with excessive unnecessary “educational” credentialling and with hiring massive numbers of governmental cubicle dwellers. Is there a better way?
“China’s long‑running wave of corporate layoffs is spreading from manufacturing and property to the technology sector, with some key firms cutting hundreds of engineering jobs …
China’s jobless rate for 16-to-24-year-olds, excluding college students, stood at 17.3% in October …
Alibaba’s workforce has shrunk from a peak of about 250,000 to fewer than 200,000, equivalent to wiping out the employment of a medium‑sized city … When Pinduoduo can generate comparable gross merchandise volume (GMV) with just 8,000 employees, Alibaba realized that manpower alone no longer creates an advantage …”