2009

The USA and China hand in hand – but where does Europe fit in?
Europeans have been observing changes to the global economic structure for some time now. The USA and China, in its capacity as a new global economic power, are increasingly setting the tone on the international stage. But what role will the old continent assume in a world that is apparently moving towards new centers of gravity? A glance at the statistics shows that the European Union with its 27 member states and almost 500 million people, remains the world’s strongest economic power, followed by the USA and, still some way behind, China. But the Europeans have themselves to blame if they have been pushed into the wings irrespective of their performance levels. After all, they are only rarely viewed as a single entity on the global stage.

Further education, training and temporary work as strategic anchors in times of demographic change
In Europe, the shortage of skilled workers is particularly acute due to demographic change. According to an Adecco Institute study, around 30% of companies in Europe are already unable to fill positions that require specific technical skills. The fundamental answer to these core challenges is education – education in the form of training, further training, qualification, and lifelong learning. With apparently neither state educational and labour market policies nor corporate initiatives able to sufficiently offset deficiencies in training and education, the question arises as to whether temporary work might not help in resolving this dilemma by increasing the employability of workers.

Interview with Jiansheng Duan, Director, Haering Precision (Taicang) Co., Ltd.
Jiansheng Duan is the Director of Haering Precision Company in China, a subsidiary of the German manufacturer of precision components for the auto industry. He went to school in China, got a degree in engineering there and was then trained on the job in Germany before going back to China to become a top executive for the company that trained him. In an interview he talks about his education, whether it can be considered best practice for knowledge transfer and how China is changing with regards to the importance of skills.

Learning in a globalized economy: a lesson from China
In past years, we have repeatedly seen traditional companies close their production facilities in Europe overnight, lay off their employees and invest in new sites - mostly in Asia. For the most part, such moves have been driven by lower costs of labour. The People's Republic of China has long been targeted by investors primarily looking for cheap labour who could be hired for industrial mass production facilities without any major preparation or additional training. Much has changed in China since then. For some time now, Chinese companies have focused on value creation through high-tech products requiring highly skilled personnel. This article describes an exemplary knowledge transfer between Germany and China.

Public private partnerships can help reduce unemployment – why not also in China?
Public Private Partnerships (PPP) are defined as jointly organized and accountable projects between government and private-sector partners. They are an expression of the changing role of governments, which are increasingly moving away from being exclusive providers of certain public goods and services to organizers, regulators and controllers. In the past 20 years, such PPPs were predominantly formed in traditionally heavily regulated and politically dominated sectors such as transport infrastructure, in healthcare or in the construction of public institutions. Over the course of the past decade however, public labor administrations are looking for ways of learning from the specialist knowledge and specific placement techniques of private employment agencies. They may also be interested to find out that private employment agencies are starting to develop competencies in the area of training and retraining applicants.

Interview with Professor Rump, Institute for Employment and Employability
Professor Dr Jutta Rump is the director of the Institute for Employment and Employability in Ludwigshafen (Germany). In this interview, the Adecco Institute discusses the findings of her latest study with her. In a survey conducted in 300 German companies, Rump assessed how businesses react to the current economic crisis. She also gives advise on how companies can use temp work to tackle the crisis.

One year after: The effects of the new Chinese labour laws
As a new year gets under way and memory fades of the spectacular sights of the Beijing Olympics, a variety of fundamental questions have been asked about the state of the Chinese labour market and the impact of the global recession upon what hitherto has been the most strongly performing economy on the globe. Towards the end of 2008, a variety of press reports began to indicate significant levels of labour shedding across the PRC. So, too, was there some evidence of companies relocating their activities in neighbouring countries such as Vietnam.

Working short-time as a means to counter rising unemployment
The economic crisis following the financial markets has taken on global dimensions. The majority of the industrialized nations are hit by the worst recession in decades. The emerging economies like China have to deal with shrinking growth. And in some developing countries famines have become a real threat. There is hardly a region is the world that is not affected by rising unemployment. The International Labor Organisation ILO anticipates the global unemployment to rise by 50 million people.

Temporary work in times of economic downturn
A year ago the Adecco Institute (London), think tank on the future of work and funded by Adecco SA, the world’s largest Human Resources (HR) provider also active in the Chinese market, presented in Shanghai an analysis of the new Chinese Labor Laws to both international and domestic companies. The feedback was overwhelmingly unanimous: what the new Chinese economic superpower is lacking are skilled workers and experienced managers in sufficient numbers to meet the requirements of a globalized economy.