Labor Flux

The global economy is moving, more rapidly than most of us could have imagined 10 or 20 years ago, towards a true competitive advantage model. But these falling barriers to labor flows create other dislocations. Even at first glance, it is clear that labor as an input to production has radically different characteristics than natural resources. We typically think of the issues of structural rigidity because of individuals attachment to their countries and families, as well as, language barriers. In this post EU environment, barriers to labor flows have been rapidly declining, but there have been significant social costs to these freedoms.


China has significant population management issues in its major cities and is now considering policies that will create barriers to entry for unskilled workers (http://www.economist.com/node/18184564?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/ar/airraidwarnings). In the EU illegal immigration hit the headlines again this week, as the strains in Italy and Greece continue to cause political unrest. Likewise in the US, we have ongoing border and immigration debates. As we move to a more information based global economy these barriers will continue shrink very rapidly. Generally, for information work there is a very free flow of labor.

Given that money and information at this point have relatively few barriers to entry does it really make any sense to focus our energy on constructing barriers to entry for workers? Perhaps it makes more sense to develop policies that will ease the natural flow of labor to places of opportunity. A shift in the language of the conversation from erecting barriers to easing and facilitating the appropriate flows is in fact a major change in orientation. The language we use to frame a contentious issue can have major ramifications on the outcome of the problem solving efforts. The fact is that the barriers to labor flows will continue to fall rapidly, one way or another. Constructive dialogue must focus on how to manage this new paradigm.

Related articles

• The Rapidly Changing Labor Force (creditloan.com)
• Will Greece's Border Fence Keep Out Illegal Immigrants? (time.com)