Equality and diversity at work
Work pressures in a globalised world
More countries in the world are trading and competing with each other than ever before. The established output of western societies such as the UK, EU and USA is now being challenged by countries such as India and China, due to the shift of manufacturing to South Asia. China is now on course to become the third largest economy after the US and Japan.
As a result traditional manufacturing in the UK has declined rapidly, decimating many traditional working class communities. Other employers, such as the service sector, have continued to pursue outsourcing and off-shoring initiatives, with as much as 2-3% of services sector jobs being lost to low wage economies.
Population movement has also had a considerable impact on the labour market. The percentage of non-UK born workers as part of the UK workforce now stands at 12%.[2] Many immigrants are likely to be younger than their UK counterparts and are either higher skilled or lower skilled. This has particularly resulted in pressure around low-wage jobs with immigrants being prepared to take lower pay and undertake more unattractive tasks than UK workers.
The rise of multinational companies (MNCs), often bigger than small countries, has enabled employers to flexibly move around the world to target localised markets and seek out competitive labour. MNCs have had to adapt their understanding of the different communities and societies that they work within, which brings with it additional complexity. In an interview with CNN, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano described how his organisation:
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"needs to contribute wherever we operate in the world. Now societal problems are different; global climate has a higher priority in some countries than others, healthcare has a higher priority, education systems are different... IBM doesn't have a common global agenda, but our agenda is to contribute" [3] |
Whilst globalisation has aided businesses to grow and recruit from across the world therefore increasing growth and competitiveness, there has been both positive and negative impacts upon workforce cohesion. For some employers diversity has led to increased productivity for others it has caused friction and tension.
One the one hand there are the views of global businesses who see their workforces as global. For example, in the same interview Sam Palmisano states
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"If you look at innovation, if you look at our most innovative products, they're multicultural and mutli-gender. The teams that do the greatest work, from innovation and breakthrough, tend to come from all over the world...So when you experience this, you realise the best way to innovate. You need diversity. It needs to be multicultural" |
This is an interesting point and demonstrates strongly the business case for diversity in a globalised world. However, one cannot ignore the impact this has had on local communities who have lost jobs and industries due to globalisation and the consequential impact this has had on relations between groups of people.
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"There is no doubt that globalization has coincided with higher unemployment among the less skilled and with widening income inequality." [4] |
2. Employment of foreign workers in the United Kingdom: 1997 to 2008, ONS, 2008, http://www.statistics.gov.uk/elmr/07_08/downloads/ELMR_Jul08_Clancy.pdf
3. Interview with IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/01/12/gps.ibm.ceo.part2.cnn
4. Does Globalization Lower Wages and Export Jobs?, Matthew J. Slaughter and Phillip Swagel, 1997 International Monetary Fund, September 1997 http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues11/