Chinese Outsourcing: How is it affecting our economy?

El Soarab

Is the trend in outsourcing to cheap countries such as China, India any part responsible for creating our current woes? Imports of physical goods from China are quite high in the Western world, as are the EU and US up to their eyes in debt to China. So basically they lend us more money so we can continue to buy their cheap stuff.

A great boon for China and some of the initial companies who started outsourcing to China (not so much other companies who simply had to follow on for cost reasons. Since Ireland hasn't really ever been a very industrial country with lots of low paid factory workers our exposure to outsourcing has been fairly limited. We don't even have a massive amount of indigenous companies that outsource to China. Our main import would appear to be consumer goods, toys, electronics and the like. Stuff with planned obsolescence built in or otherwise generally doesn't last very long which seems to be creating a culture of dependence on Chinese goods.

Another trend I have seen over the years is an increase in goods produced by indigenous Chinese companies. Some people swear by these products but from what I have seen myself most again don't last very long but if they sort out their shortcommings then the traditional Western 'Outsourcer' company becomes redundant and its benefit of bringing money into the economy goes with it, and the more companies that outsource to China the faster the Chinese will learn.

None of this seems very sustainable, not only financially but also the huge amount of resources consumed in producing and transporting essentially disposable goods that people don't necessarily need. Assuming transport costs don't rise dramatically and put a damper on things will we end up being sucked dry or being owned by which ever government will tolerate the lowest standard of living and worst working conditions for employees? Already we are seeing fewer companies wanting to outsource to China due to increasing costs, so is there any positive outlook for the manufacturing industry in Ireland or the rest of Europe?

keithclancy

Outsourcing has been that way for years.

Pick a rigid process and outsource it (Call Centers being a popular one)

Ireland will never be a big player in Heavy Industry, its just too small.