Why the job market is changing...

[ozpont]

...here in Australia the job opportunities are changing.. but IMO they are a Choice we REALLY do have against what is coming internationally ... if wages for assembly OR the cost of effective cost management can't be met... .. SOME WHERE ELSE IT WILL & Just like car parts or phone call costs etc.. opportunities move...
  Take this  articale and read it and begin to understand the remifications for SA & Victorian Auto Workers if what we all want.. ie increased wages and conditions are NOT KEEP in check in THOSE industries...  
     TextIn Shanghai, for example, workers assembling Buick Excelle compact cars cost GM $9 an hour for total wages and benefits -- compared with more than $60 for wage and benefit costs of U.S. hourly workers.

  .. Its NOT Howards or Rudds fault.. but the way it is....
  .. read on...:

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GM Retrenches in Europe, Shifts Gaze East
By JOSEPH B. WHITE in Shanghai and STEPHEN POWER in Frankfurt

April 18, 2007; Page A4 / WSJ

By announcing job cuts in Belgium and growth plans in India and China on the same day, General Motors Corp. made clear its intent to keep shifting jobs and resources to the East and away from tougher markets in the U.S. and Western Europe.

The world's largest auto maker by output, plagued with losses in its key North American auto operations and in danger of being eclipsed by fast-growing Toyota Motor Corp., said it expects to double production capacity at major factories in China by 2010. Meanwhile, Chief Executive Rick Wagoner discussed growth plans in India yesterday during a visit there. Even as Detroit-based GM talked up such growth, it separately said it will cut 1,400 jobs in Belgium.

The announcements illustrate Mr. Wagoner's strategy of banking on growth in Asia, particularly China and India, and in Eastern Europe to offset the impact on GM of its declining sales in the mature markets of the West. The challenge is to show that growth and profits from new markets can come fast enough to offset the costs of downsizing in the mature markets -- costs that have helped cause GM to rack up $12 billion in net losses during the past two years.

 
In New Delhi to announce the launch of GM's first small car in India, Mr. Wagoner yesterday said India could become a production hub for the company to sell cars world-wide. "It is conceivable in the future that you could see exports out of India," Mr. Wagoner said. "We think, within a decade, India will emerge as the second-fastest-growing automotive market in the world."

Separately, GM's vice chairman and chief financial officer, Frederick "Fritz" Henderson, told reporters in Seoul, South Korea, that GM remains interested in a business tie-up with Malaysia's Proton Holdings Bhd., which could offer GM greater access to the growing Southeast Asian market.

Within the past year, GM has slashed its unionized U.S. hourly work force, buying out about 34,000 employees, and trimmed the company's salaried work force. GM faces tough negotiations this summer and fall with the United Auto Workers, and the growing gap between the wages and benefits paid to UAW workers and the lower wages GM pays elsewhere is sure to be a key issue.

The rapid moves to bulk up capacity and sales in Asia could help GM fend off Toyota's challenge to GM's six-decade reign as the world's No. 1 car maker. GM, through its joint ventures, sold 876,747 cars in China last year, compared with 276,774 vehicles for Toyota.

GM executives in China say the auto maker and its main joint-venture partner, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., plan to double vehicle-making capacity in China to one million vehicles annually by 2010.[/color]

Separately, GM China President Kevin Wale said GM could, with relatively little new investment, expand production capacity about 50% at its venture with Shanghai Automotive and Wuling Automobile Co., Shanghai-GM-Wuling, which produces minivehicles such as subcompact vans. Wuling, based in the southwestern Chinese city of Liuzhou, sold more than 417,000 vehicles last year.

GM plans to expand capacity despite sharp declines in vehicle prices during the past three years, reflecting intense competition among international and domestic Chinese car makers. Average vehicle prices in China have been falling at a pace of 7% a year and fell 5% in the first quarter of 2007 from a year earlier, Mr. Wale said.

Meanwhile, GM said yesterday it plans to cease production of its Astra compact model at a factory in Antwerp, Belgium, at the end of the decade. The company said it also expects to eliminate about 1,400 jobs at the Belgian plant, which employs 4,500 people, though it also said it would enter talks with its employee representatives about building a small Chevrolet model at the factory.

Carl-Peter Forster, president of GM Europe, described the decision to cease production of the Astra in Belgium as "extraordinarily difficult" but said it was part of the company's restructuring activities in Western Europe.

The cuts highlight the broader trend at GM and other Western auto makers of slashing jobs in high-wage countries while adding them in lower-cost areas. In Shanghai, for example, workers assembling Buick Excelle compact cars cost GM $9 an hour for total wages and benefits -- compared with more than $60 for wage and benefit costs of U.S. hourly workers.

The Shanghai-GM factory outsources most of its subassembly work and support jobs to contractors who pay 20% to 30% less than the GM wage rate. Absenteeism is at 1%, and the average car requires 15 hours of labor to build, on a par with the best GM plants in North America.

--Gordon Fairclough in Shanghai, Nitin Luthra and C.R. Jayachandran in New Delhi,and Kyong-Ae Choi in Seoul contributed to this article.

Write to Joseph B. White at joseph.white@wsj.com1 and Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com2

 URL for this articale:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117683281090172867.html