The week that was: 4 Mar 08 - 11 Mar 08
Eastern Europe may be one of the continent’s hottest outsourcing locations, but plans to lure more international investment to Germany’s economically challenged eastern region has hit a snag. And whilst companies from the US, China and Japan might have been tempted by a new ‘Invest in Germany’ advertising campaign highlighting the rich promise of an area with traditionally low wages and, rather more dubiously, weak trade unions, Wolfgang Tienfensee, minister for eastern Germany, wasn’t so chuffed. The campaign went down like a lead balloon in the east where, as advertised, wages are still 30 per cent below those found in the country’s more affluent western regions. Unsurprisingly, the campaign has now gone the same way as the Berlin Wall.
Quote of the week – “Our credibility suffers every day that I have to put an under-skilled buyer in front of a savvy business customer.” An unnamed director of procurement in the technology industry illustrates how pressing the need for talent is in the Aberdeen Group’s report ‘CPO Rising: The CPO’s Agenda for 2008.’
ELP is receiving very mixed messages from the emerging markets of India and China at the present time. Yesterday, during an uncharacteristically quiet period, we read that one million jobs will be created in India in 2008 – I’m not sure how they came to this figure but it seems a remarkably precise piece of analysis given that the hospitality industry is expected to generate exactly 426,668 jobs over the next nine months (ELP wonders what happens if 426,669 positions become available). Meanwhile in China the jobs market seems rather less rosy – although this has little to do with an economic slowdown and far more to do with an excess of some eight million people in the country’s labour market. According to a rather grave looking Tian Chengping, China’s Labour Minister, 20 million new workers are chasing just 12 million jobs, leading to the kind of race that will keep spectators on the edge of their seats at the Beijing Olympics this summer.
= Online Global Members Only 
= Premier Members Only
