Essential Question: To what extent is globalization changing site and situation factors for manufacturing?
In the developed region like United States and Europe, they are shifting the traditional industrial areas to where wages are lower in order to stay competitive in the global economy. United States shift from the Northeast toward the South and West while Europe encourages relocation toward economically distressed peripheral areas. Nevertheless, the number of apparel workers in the United States declined from 900,000 in 1990 to 500,000 in 2000 and to 150,000 in 2010. Most apparel switched from being domestically made to being foreign made. Similar effect is happening in Europe. Transnational corporations allocated production to low wage countries through outsourcing to make the products cheaper and better. However these changing site and situation factors for manufacturing are not merely caused by globalization. It is rather a natural effect that comes along as economies mature. Germany, as an example, protected factory jobs from international competition still had declination of jobs by 27% between 1990 and 2008. People consume more money on services and less on goods as economies mature and switching to service based economy is a likely outcome.
In the developed region like United States and Europe, they are shifting the traditional industrial areas to where wages are lower in order to stay competitive in the global economy. United States shift from the Northeast toward the South and West while Europe encourages relocation toward economically distressed peripheral areas. Nevertheless, the number of apparel workers in the United States declined from 900,000 in 1990 to 500,000 in 2000 and to 150,000 in 2010. Most apparel switched from being domestically made to being foreign made. Similar effect is happening in Europe. Transnational corporations allocated production to low wage countries through outsourcing to make the products cheaper and better. However these changing site and situation factors for manufacturing are not merely caused by globalization. It is rather a natural effect that comes along as economies mature. Germany, as an example, protected factory jobs from international competition still had declination of jobs by 27% between 1990 and 2008. People consume more money on services and less on goods as economies mature and switching to service based economy is a likely outcome.