The US Economy And The Effects Of Businesses’ Globalization On Employment

Currently, there is a debate raging about the economic impact of globalization. This is evidenced by the fact that multiple US-based brand-name global corporations – who employ approximately 1/5 of the US workforce – have been increasingly cutting back in the US while hiring more outside of the US.

New data from the US Commerce Department indicates that, during the 2000s, US companies have cut their US work forces by 2.9 million while they have increased overseas employment by 2.4 million. This is a sharp contrast of 1990s data, which indicated that only 2.7 million were abroad and 4.4 million jobs were created in the US.

In total, US-based global companies, in 2009, employed in the US 21.1 million workers and, abroad, there were 10.3 million workers.

This trend is highlighting the increasing importance of other, rapidly growing, economies – Asia being one example – to large US businesses such as Wal-Mart, Microsoft Corp, Caterpillar Inc. and General Electric Co.

The data also highlights the vulnerability of the US economy.

Some people indicate that, because of this growing trend, the US government should hinder companies from exporting work overseas and then importing the products back to the US. Business-friendly analysts, though, say that the data indicates that big companies may not want to look to the US anymore for a place for them to hire and invest.

Growth in work forces overseas is a sensitive subject for many US companies. Quite a few businesses, including Oracle Corp., decline to comment on the issue of future hiring or how many people are employed where.

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Posted by Stephanie Koch on Apr 19 2011. Filed under Personal Finance, Top Business Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.