Many U. S. workers compete in the global market for talent.   Jobs can be moved to countries where comparable quality work can be performed for less or where there it is easier to find a skilled workforce.  A 2005 study from The National Academies illustrates the point:

• For the cost of one chemist or one engineer in the United States, a company can hire about five chemists in China or 11 engineers in India.
• In 2004, more than 600,000 engineers graduated from institutions of higher education in China.  In India, the figure was 350,000.  In America, it was about 70,000.
• Of 120 chemical plants being built around the world with price tags of $1 billion or more, one is in the U.S. and 50 are in China.

If you manage in a company that competes globally, or are employed by an organization whose work can be sourced globally, you know that constant change is necessary to either stay ahead or catch up.  Choosing to change slowly is a choice to lose eventually.  Choosing to change quickly is choosing to compete aggressively.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Demographics, Leadership.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.