The world at work: Jobs, pay, and skills for 3.5 billion people

Richard Dobbs, Anu Madgavkar, Dominic Barton, Eric Labaye, James Manyika, Charles Roxburgh, Susan Lund, Siddarth Madhav:

Over the past three decades, as developing economies industrialized and began to compete in world markets, a global labor market started taking shape. As more than one billion people entered the labor force, a massive movement from "farm to factory" sharply accelerated growth of productivity and per capita GDP in China and other traditionally rural nations, helping to bring hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. To raise productivity, developed economies invested in labor-saving technologies and tapped global sources of low-cost labor.

Today, the strains on this market are becoming increasingly apparent. In advanced economies, demand for high-skill labor is now growing faster than supply, while demand for low-skill labor remains weak. Labor's overall share of income, or the share of national income that goes to worker compensation, has fallen, and income inequality is growing as lower-skill workers--including 75 million young people--experience unemployment, underemployment, and stagnating wages.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 17, 2012 2:04 AM
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