Book on the Future of Work
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“… the employment challenge has become a ‘one-world problem’ … within a new world paradigm characterized by the twin keywords ‘globalization’ and ‘market liberalization’.”
Juhani Lönnroth, Global Employment Issues in the Year 2000, Monthly Labor Review, September 1994.
Between 1973 and 2008 the value of World merchandise exports increased from $579 billion to $15.7 trillion. The increase in imports was similar in size. Between 2000 and 2007 the ratio of exports of goods and commercial services to GDP for the world increased from 25 percent to 32 percent.
Source: International Trade Statistics 2009, Chapter on World Trade Developments, World Trade Organization, 2010, tables 1.6 and 1.21.
Globalization has changed the world. We now live and work in a world economy, not a world of national and local economies. The U.S. employment market is part of a global employment market. U.S. unemployment is a share of global unemployment. U.S. employment trends are a subset of global employment trends.
Yet, we continue to define our employment problems using local, state, and national boundaries as though they are real economic boundaries. We continue to rely on local, state, and federal economic policy tools, like tax incentives and deficit spending, that were formulated before the world’s national and local economies became integrated into a single global economy.
The purpose of this web site is to explain this point of view, report relevant global and U.S. investment, trade, and workforce trends, and examine the policy implications.
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Thanks for visiting. I hope you find the perspective interesting and useful.
Jim Lunday
IWE WORK FUTURES 