CIAO DATE: 12/2014
Volume: 30, Issue: 2
June 2013
Unchaining Labor (PDF)
David A. Andelman
The ability to create, sustain, and develop work in a pleasant and profitable environment is the touchstone of success for an economy, a society, and a government. Productive work has been the determinant of happiness, well-being, and satisfaction since the first human rubbed two sticks together and created fire.
The Big Question: Manufacturing Jobs: What Is the Best Way to Create Jobs? (PDF)
David Fine, Megan Yarema, Pedro Conceicao, Irene Mandl, Raymond Greene, Ana Maria Oviedo
With jobs disappearing across the developed world and arriving too slowly to keep pace with the population growth and aspirations of the developing world, the very nature of work is being challenged as never before. We asked our panel of global experts what they see as the most effective and expeditious way of creating jobs.
Jobs Crisis: Moving Forward? (PDF)
Raymond Torres
Geneva-Europe has entered an employment crisis of alarming proportions and with unpredictable social and political consequences. The figures speak for themselves. Over 27 million Europeans are unemployed-8 million more than when the global financial crisis erupted in September 2008. While the employment free fall paused during 2010-2011, it has gathered momentum ever since. Over the past six months alone, unemployment has grown by 2.5 million people. Though the trends are worse in southern European countries and parts of Eastern Europe, unemployment has resumed its upward trend even in hitherto successful European countries.
Map Room: Turning Over Tech Workers (PDF)
Across Europe, the days of having a single career at a single company are over. The increased movement of labor from job to job is a major cost for both companies and countries. The price of replacing a single employee in a given country (Cost of Turnover) reflects the sum of all expenses and opportunity costs to separate and rehire an employee. It can range from 20 percent to an incredible 200 percent of that employee's annual salary. This map of science and technology workers, a reflection of their tremendous influence on economic growth, shows the Cost of Turnover as a percentage of a country's per capita GDP.
Auctioning the Future of Work (PDF)
Phillip Brown, Hugh Lauder
The 2008 financial crisis wiped trillions of dollars off the value of the world’s financial markets, but it did little to halt the explosion in college education. Families from all walks of life and governments of all political persuasions embrace the idea that investing in a college education offers students a route to middle-class prosperity. Difficult economic times in much of the world only reinforce the myth that education triggers economic growth and resolves problems of inequality.
China's Left-Behind (PDF)
Helen Gao
GUANG’AN, China—Jiang Xin leaves school at 2:30 p.m. everyday. On his way home, the 8-yearold usually lingers by the rice fields with his friends for an hour or so, squatting on the edge of a dirt road, where trucks loaded with coal roar by. They play with pebbles, exchange school gossip, or punch the buttons of Jiang’s video game player, which he wrapped in tape to prevent from falling apart. Their cattle stand together in a nearby field, grazing on grass stalks
A View from the Sweatshop Floor: A Conversation with Nazma Akter (PDF)
Twenty-seven years ago, at the age of 11, Nazma Akter entered a Bangladeshi garment factory for the first time, laboring beside her mother. Seven years later, frustrated by the deep politicization of the existing unions—their close ties with factory owners, corrupt bureaucrats, and politicians—she formed her own union, the Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation, to defend the interests of tens of thousands of Bangladeshis, primarily women garment workers.
Surviving a Cold War
Robert Nickelsberg, Judith Matloff
S KJOLD, Norway—The bullets were real. But fortunately for the Norwegian snipers, this was just an exercise. If it had been real combat, the enemy would have easily spotted the troops in the vast whiteness of the Arctic. The white camouflage uniforms didn’t match the ever-changing color of snow. The men’s breath and shadows were easily seen in the frost. And the extreme cold impaired the sharpshooters’ accuracy by influencing bullet speeds.
A Torrent of Consequences (PDF)
Jacques Leslie
THIMPHU, Bhutan—If any nation deserves a waiver from the depredations of climate change, it is surely the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. A Maryland-sized postage stamp of a country, it is entirely surrounded by the world’s two most populous nations, India and China, but resembles neither. Bhutan is the no-hunting, no-fishing, no-billboards, no-smoking, no-genetically-modified organisms, no-plastic-bags, no-stoplights, no-mountaineering exception to the world as we know it. The country is poor and seeks development, but only on its terms—not at the expense of its profoundly reverent but vulnerable Buddhist culture and its fragile, achingly beautiful mountain terrain.
Tatarstan: The Battle over Islam in Russia's Heartland (PDF)
Ronan Keenan
KAZAN, Tatarstan— Shelves of vodka line a shop wall in Kazan, the capital of the Tatarstan republic. Just opposite, Islamic prayer beads sit in heaps on a rack. In this Russian-ruled region with a Muslim majority, bars and mosques exist side by side. A nearby store advertises clothing for Muslim women, and inside, Zulfia, one of the two female owners, helps customers with traditional headscarves and brightly colored skirts.
Fools' Gold (PDF)
Jonathan Ewing
KINSHASA, Congo—Joachim Andersson owned and operated a string of failed businesses before he founded Mineral Invest and began mining for gold in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. During the 1980s, Andersson worked as a pastry chef at an all-night café in a Stockholm suburb. It was the kind of place frequented by taxi drivers and prostitutes. Stolen goods were fenced in the café, and Andersson learned about precious metals. During the 1990s, he began dealing in minerals from Africa, and he was sentenced to five years in prison for tax evasion relating to importing gold.
Rethinking Ivory: Why Trade in Tusks Won't Go Away (PDF)
John Frederick Walker
TSAVO WEST, Kenya—Two years ago, in what was billed as a defiant message to elephant poachers, Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki arrived by helicopter at a dusty airstrip in Tsavo West National Park to set fire to five tons of seized contraband ivory
Voices: Colombia's Path to Peace (PDF)
Sibylla Brodzinsky
BOGOTÁ—For much of the first half of 2012, Colombia hardly seemed on the path to peace. As they have done for the past half-century, leftist rebels ambushed soldiers, destroyed oil pipelines, set off bombs, and plotted against the government. Government forces, for their part, launched attacks on rebel camps, captured and killed guerrilla leaders, and welcomed deserters.
Coda: Snared in Bureaucracy
David A. Andelman