Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Tech Jobs Fleeing Europe

Not exactly surprising news from Instat today: Despite Prospects of Growth, West European Electronics Industry Continues to Face Global Pressures

According to an annual survey published by Reed Electronics Research... production in the (European) region amounted to Euro 192 billion in 2004, around 19% of the global total...a sharp decline between 2000 and 2003, when electronics output fell by just under 30%...Output in real terms declined by 0.7% in 2004 and was forecast to fall by 1.3% in 2005.

Other findings include:

The sharp decline in the communications and IT sectors, in particular, has had a significant impact on the industry and most notably in France and the UK, where a combination of lower demand and the migration of production to lower cost locations has seen output fall by 37% and 45% respectively between 2000 and 2004.



Europe is obviously seeing the same outsourcing to China and other parts of Asia that the U.S. is experiencing. However, once jobs leave the U.S. they are replaced by new ones, as seen by the current U.S. unemployment rate of 4.8%. Once jobs leave Europe, however, they stay gone. The unemployment rate in France is 9.6%.

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