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A number of economists are worried, too -- but, unlike the politicians, not about how many jobs the U.S. will create between now and November. They're concentrating instead on an aspect of international job competition that hasn't yet gotten much notice: The conceivably widespread impact, at some point, on U.S. incomes and living standards.
ROUTINE FLUX? It may sound premature to be concerned about that. For instance, no one has even been able to pinpoint precisely how many white-collar positions have moved overseas of late -- and many economists doubt that the number is high enough to make it a primary cause of sluggish employment gains. Even if a few hundred thousand jobs have departed for low-wage countries such as China and India in recent years, that number pales beside the routine job flux in the U.S., points out Harvard University trade economist Robert Z. Lawrence. In 2002, the latest year for which full data is available, 32.1 million jobs in the U.S. disappeared, while 31.7 million were created, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Even so, the recent transfer to other countries of so-called knowledge work -- jobs requiring lots of education and creative skills -- could be a signal of what lies ahead. For a precedent, look at what globalization has done to the pay of less-skilled U.S. factory workers over the past three decades or so. As low-wage countries developed the ability to produce things such as apparel, electronics, and textiles, Americans in those industries found themselves competing with people who'll work for a tenth of their pay. This has exerted downward pressure on U.S. factory wages that continues today.
True, the domestic economy usually plays a larger role in wage-setting than does foreign competition. That became clear during the boom of the late 1990s, when red-hot demand for employees who were in short supply more than offset the globalization effect and lifted pay of even the lowest-skilled Americans. Still, in non-boom times the downward tug from abroad is powerful. It's probably one reason average inflation-adjusted wages in the U.S. have slumped by 0.1% in the past year. Without the countervailing force of full employment in America, foreign competition rules.
WORSE OUTLOOK. That's why the spread of global labor competition to the top of the skill ladder could be so significant. The ability of U.S. companies to find architects, engineers, programmers, and financial analysts in places like India for a fraction of what they cost at home almost certainly will create a dampening effect, sooner or later, on the pay of the 80% of U.S. employees who until now have been unaffected by such global job competition. "White-collar offshoring will make the wage outlook worse for high-skilled Americans, no question," says Brookings Institution economist William T. Dickens.
Indeed, trade theory suggests that the impact ultimately could be larger for high-skilled workers than it has been for the lesser-educated. As the world increasingly begins to look like one big labor pool, market forces should tend to move wages everywhere toward the same level for similar work, all else being equal. After all, employers won't pay more for labor in one country if they can easily get the same work done elsewhere for less. They wouldn't remain competitive for long if they did.
Problem is, all else isn't necessarily equal: Wages tend to move toward equilibrium only after productivity is factored into the equation. If American apparel workers earn $10 for making 10 shirts, their pay starts to come under pressure only when a Mexican worker can churn out the same quality shirts for less than $1 each. That has happened with apparel, so the U.S. has lost many clothes-making jobs. But U.S. skill and technology have made many factories at home more productive than their foreign counterparts -- one reason that all American factory jobs haven't shifted abroad.
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