among the production workers. In general, most EU countries producing leather
footwear have oriented their production towards skilled labour while EU firms
producing synthetic shoes have sought to exploit the large endowment of low skilled,
low wage labour in developing countries such as China, South Korea (CEC (1997)). In
other words, where the quality of the footwear is important and it reflects the quality of
the labour input then the forces pushing towards localisation of production can
outweigh those of globalisation. At the same time these considerations also suggest that
where quality is important the scope for mechanisation of the tasks of the production
workers is likely to be limited.
Table 6: Ratio of Hourly wages for Italian and Belgian Labourers according to level of
skills in the leather footwear industry between 1981-1999 (Skill level 1 = 1)
|
Italy____________________________________________________________________________________________________ | ||||||||
|
__________________________________________Skill Level__________________________________________ | ||||||||
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | |
|
1999 |
1 |
0,93 |
0,84 |
0,81 |
0,77 |
0,74 |
0,71 |
0,64 |
|
1995 |
1 |
0,94 |
0,85 |
0,83 |
0,80 |
0,77 |
0,74 |
0,69 |
|
1989 |
1 |
0,98 |
0,90 |
0,85 |
0,82 |
0,80 |
0,76 |
n/a |
|
1985 |
1 |
0,92 |
0,86 |
0,84 |
0,81 |
0,78 |
n/a |
n/a |
|
1981 |
1 |
0,90 |
0,83 |
0,81 |
0,78 |
0,76 |
n/a |
n/a |
|
Belgium | ||||||||
|
__________________________________________Skill Level__________________________________________ | ||||||||
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | |
|
1999 |
1 |
0,97 |
0,97 |
0,92 |
0,91 |
0,90 |
0,86 | |
|
1995 |
1 |
0,97 |
0,96 |
0,94 |
0,92 |
0,91 |
0,90 |
0,88 |
|
1989 |
1 |
0,97 |
0,96 |
0,94 |
0,92 |
0,91 |
0,89 |
0,88 |
|
1985 |
1 |
0,97 |
0,96 |
0,94 |
0,91 |
0,90 |
0,89 |
0,87 |
|
1981 |
1 |
0,97 |
0,95 |
0,93 |
0,91 |
0,90 |
0,88 |
0,86 |
Source: Committee of Social Affairs (Belgium 1997), FILTA (1999)
3.3 Unemployment of Footwear Workers
The ‘trade and labour’ debate, both in the US and Europe, has firmly focused on the
issue of how much inequality, either in terms of wages or unemployment, can be
attributed to increased competition from low-wage countries. None of the other
dynamics of labour markets linked to social exclusion, such as the length of
unemployment for those which are made redundant, or the mobility of different types of
workers between wage classes, has been directly considered in relation to the
emergence of less-developed countries in international markets.
16
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