Westerners And Their Behaviour To Money Is Fuelling The Increase In Cheap Labour Overseas
The use of cheap overseas labour is not new, but in recent times, the importation of cheap labour onto our shores is becoming a fact too hard to bear. Just recently in Australia, a story was shown nation wide of how employers are now paying for companies to supply them with cheap labour from places like Southeast Asia.
The argument put forward by the employers is that they are cheap, reliable, qualified, and most importantly, they want to work, and this is more than what can be said for Australians, especially the young.
On the other side of the coin, union bosses are crying foul because it is impossible for a qualified worker in Australia to compete with a similarly qualified worker from overseas, who is asking around 30 to 40% of the asking rate from Australians.
But not once, throughout this whole story did any body try to expose the reason this explosion of cheap labour, whether it be in our own country or outsourcing, is occurring.
Let’s compare a country like Australia or the US to a country like China, and the average families behaviour to work and money, and also their outlook in life.
In Australia or the US, the average family is saving around 2% of their total household income. In China, the average family is saving around 40%. This is a massive difference, and the fact that the average worker in China is willing to work for around 5% of the income earned by someone in the US, it makes it even more difficult to swallow.
The Chinese also adopt an attitude of waiting for their spoils. Another words, unless they can pay cash for something, they will not attempt to purchase it. On the other hand, we in the western world want everything now and in most instances, not a second thought goes into the cost of these actions down the road.
So what are these two distinct differences creating? Well, think about it! Because westerners want everything now, they need to use credit. This overuse of credit is causing massive personal debt, so is it any wonder our average savings rate is only 2%.
The Chinese can save 40% of their income because they are prepared to wait for their luxuries, and they have no personal debt.
So what has this got to do with cheap labour flooding our markets? It has plenty.
If we weren’t so far in debt, we could save more and live on less. If we can live on less, we don’t need to earn as much. If we don’t need to earn as much we can compete with overseas labour. But let me take this a little further, because I can hear a lot of you saying yeah but, just the removal of debt will still not compete with a market willing to work for 5% of the income over here – Yes it will!
You see, when you have a lot of consumer spending, whether it be on credit or not, it will always cause the price of materials to go up. The mere fact that a huge majority of consumer spending is done through credit, only serves to magnify this. In our impatience to keep up with the Jones’s or our belief that it is our ‘god given birth right’ to own everything now, we have created a demand that is willing to pay plenty.
This demand or appetite for life’s luxuries, and the credit used to pay for it, is causing a huge vacuum, and the only way to fill this vacuum is for wages to keep increasing at alarming rates to support it.
The biggest problem is that throughout our entire lives, we are being told that it is good to want everything now, and that it is our right to have everything now, regardless of whether we can afford it or not.
I want to make this clear right now, that I don’t blame people for the mess they are in, or for the huge increase in cheap overseas labour, I only blame the institutions who encourage the behaviour we see so evident in westerners. But what I will say is that before you go blaming overseas labour for stealing our jobs, maybe we should learn to take a leaf out of their book when it comes to the way we treat our finances and our appetite for life’s luxuries.
