February 18, 2015
Yes folks, the news just keeps getting worse. The NYT had an article touting India’s economic prospects, which it contrasts with China. It told readers:
“China’s investigations of multinationals, persistent tensions with neighboring countries and surging blue-collar wages have prompted many companies to start looking elsewhere for large labor forces.”
The piece also includes a box with a figure showing that the number of people in China between the ages of 15-24 (prime factory worker age) is projected to fall from 250 million in 2009 to roughly 160 million in 2019. It adds the information that, “a sharp increase in college attendance has made the problem more acute.” Needless to say, this story is being told from the standpoint of businesses seeking low cost labor.
It’s fine for the NYT to run such pieces, but it would also be worth having a piece that described the impact that surging blue collar wages and a sharp increase in college attendance are having on the standard of living of hundreds of millions of people in China. From the standpoint of businesses looking for cheap labor this might be bad news, but from the standpoint of those who would like to see poor people lifted out of poverty, this sounds like very encouraging news. It would be great to see more coverage from the NYT from the perspective of workers in China.
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