Global Shortages:
Australia: Group urges national
approach to work force shortage
A business lobby group says an exhibition today by the Queensland Premier Peter
Beattie to lure workers out of New South Wales is a "cheeky stunt" and the
states should be working together.
Canada: (ABC) Canada:
Businesses offering workers signing bonus
Workers breaking into the Nanaimo labour market have it much easier these days,
say business owners and employment agencies. They say the city, like the
province, is facing a worker shortage and companies are offering incentives such
as signing bonuses and better work benefits to lure and keep employees. (Nanaimo
News)
GP dealing with declining spirits; but we're not ale-ing in
suds dept. Shortage of liquor a challenge for bars, retail outlets Brace yourself Grande Prairie, there's a liquor shortage. But before the
rioting starts, rest assured the beer supply is still safe. For almost a month
now, liquor deliveries to Grande Prairie have slowed and stopped for several
local bars and stores. The problem goes back to the distributor Connect
Logistics, based in St. Albert. That company has the contract from Alberta
Gaming and Liquor Commission (AGLC) to supply all hard alcohol and imported beer
in the province. In what is becoming a standard Alberta story, the company is
experiencing a labour shortage at the same time that demand is soaring, meaning
bars and stores are waiting longer than ever for delivery. (Daily
Herald Tribune)
B.C. aviation firms face skills shortage
A Victoria company that wants to restart production of the Twin Otter, an icon
among Canadian-built aircraft, is facing a familiar problem afflicting British
Columbia's booming aerospace sector: a skills shortage. (Globe
and Mail)
China: Chinese economy enjoys comic relief The Chinese government has an ambitious plan to boost domestic production of
comic books, animation films and television series, seeing the fledgling
industry as one of the new keys to sustaining growth in the economy. (atimes)
China labor pains and holiday woes A shortage of workers at low-cost factories in China could spell trouble for
U.S. toys, apparel, shoe retailers.
Retailers have a new, and unexpected, Grinch to worry about this Christmas: a
Chinese labor crunch. Make that a cheap labor crunch. The migrant workers that
typically man China's low-cost factories are drifting away. And it has some of
the North American businesses that use those facilities - makers of toys,
clothes, shoes and electronics - worried. (CNNMoney.com)
Ghana: When Child Work Is Not Exploitative
The exploitative use of children for economic gains by adults has become a
source of concern for many people around the world. However, in the midst of all
the concerns raised about child labour and the alarming figures that are being
quoted from various sources, one must not mistake child work for child labour.
This is because in Africa, children are brought up in such a way that they take
up the profession of their parents and this particularly occurs in rural
settings, where the transfer of skills such as farming, smithery, and herbal
preparations is a common feature. (Graphic
Ghana)
Global:
The Voodoo Economics of Indian Outsourcing
In an interesting set of articles, Information Week reports that "IT employment
in the United States is growing even as more businesses outsource tech work
overseas" and Line 56 reports that India's labor shortage is driving them to
hire Americans and other foreigners. Recent survey data indicates that domestic
US demand for skilled IT workers is on the rise, pay levels are up, and worker
confidence is outpacing other sectors. (CMS
Wire)
EDS Has Its Work Cut Out
From large companies such as Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) to
smaller, more focused operators such as Resources Connection (Nasdaq: RECN),
there are dozens of ways to play the outsourcing trend. Turnaround candidates
are also a possibility -- one of them being EDS (NYSE: EDS), a company that
looks like a potential value but has some meaningful headwinds to address. ...
That said, some larger issues still concern me. For starters, because EDS was
relatively late to the outsourcing game, it lags behind the likes of Accenture
and IBM. EDS is trying to catch up, though, which may ultimately be bad news for
operators such as Infosys (Nasdaq: INFY) as more companies compete for a finite
labor supply. (Motley
Fool)
India: BNKe Sol eyes small towns
Kolkata-based business process outsourcing companies may face a shortage in
human resources in the coming years as similar establishments in other metros
soak up manpower from the state. However, the attrition rate in this city for
the industry is a lower 30 per cent as compared to the 40 per cent in the rest
of India. (Business
Standard)
Ireland: IMF says Irish economic growth has become
increasingly unbalanced in recent years with heavy reliance on building
investment, sharp increases in house prices, and rapid credit growth
In a review of the Irish Economy published in Washington D.C. on Monday, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that economic growth is strong,
unemployment is low and labor participation rising, and government debt has been
reduced dramatically over the past two decades. Nevertheless, it observed that
growth has become increasingly unbalanced in recent years, with heavy reliance
on building investment, sharp increases in house prices, and rapid credit
growth, especially to property-related sectors. (finfacts)
Jamaica:
Fire brigade beefs up personnel
The Jamaica Fire Brigade yesterday graduated 123 men and women at the G.C.
Foster College, St. Catherine. Under a searing sun, the brigade, which is
experiencing a human capacity shortage of about 300 persons, paraded the 123 men
and women, who were chosen from a group of 132. The 123 went through a series of
practical and academic training over 12 weeks to emerge as graduates. (Jamaica
Gleaner)
South Africa: SA's serious executive shortage
Deloitte's Laurence Grubb on the serious executive shortage the country is
facing and why this vacuum of top skills has occurred. (iafrica)
Thailand:
Fears for labour force as women shun marriage
Nearly half of Kingdom's women now single, demography expert tells seminar
Nearly half of Thai women are single, prompting concerns that as more women go
childless, the country may face a labour shortage and end up having to import
workers, a demographer said yesterday. (The
Nation)
UK: UK Oil and Gas faces crisis over skills shortage
A national campaign to tackle the acute skills shortage facing the UK subsea oil
and gas industry has been launched: Subsea needs to recruit more professional
engineers. (ProcessingTalk)
US:
U.S. makes legal entry tough for Mexicans
'IT REQUIRES MONEY AND CONNECTIONS'
Jesœs Rojas wanted no part of the arduous trek across the Sonora desert and no
part of life underground in the United States, working in the shadow of the law.
So when a nephew in his central Mexican town of Guanajuato introduced him to a
recruiter for an American landscaping company that would sponsor him legally,
the 52-year-old handyman jumped at the chance. (Lexington
Herald)
Combating Skills Shortage, IBM Hosts
University Workshops
As part of a larger effort to combat the shortage of skills in the IT
marketplace, IBM is bringing its application development technologies right
through the front doors of academia. (eweek)
Rethinking The Last 200 Years Of US Immigration Policy
Conventional histories of US immigration policy generally present the starting
point as laissez-faire, or open door, an attitude that only shifted to favor
increased restriction after the Civil War. The door began to close with the
exclusion of Chinese in the final decades of the 19th century and the imposition
of annual quotas for Europeans in the 1920s. (ILW.com)
Slim Pickin'
The crackdown on illegal immigrants has left local farmers short of labor as
crops lie withering in the summer sun. An inconsistent number of laborers are
showing up for harvesting and local farm production is drastically down. Farms
all over South County are feeling the monetary effects of the labor shortage. (Dispatch)
Organic farms face a severe labor shortage
Foreman Eber Diaz is bent over a field of parsley, a sickle in his right hand,
his left working quickly to gather herbs among the weeds. For every fragrant
bunch he picks and ties with a twist, he stops to rip out handfuls of the
thick-stemmed weeds crowding the crop. (Modesto
Bee)
Whither Contracting Management
You've heard all the talk about the federal acquisition workforce being eligible
to retire in less than a decade. The Federal Acquisition Institute has released
its latest annual report and pretty much confirms it. Fifty four percent
of contracting professionals are eligible to retire in 2015, according to FAI's
report. (FederalNewsRadio
)