Computers are changing the world. But they have yet to really change it the way they are going to. The first wave of real change is the whole out sourcing fiasco. Companies are waking up to the fact that physical location is no longer important in a computer connected world. Take your average cube farm. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of workers sitting there peck peck pecking away occasionally getting up to go to the printer/water cooler/restroom. They spend their entire day sitting at their desk answering a phone and pecking away at a computer. Now here is the thing. Once upon a time this concentration of workers in a single area was a very important feature of the ability to get work done. Physically moving the resutls of one worker down the line to the next person in the chain was a physcial action and if they were located far apart then this would create a bottle neck for the work being done. Thus the office complex with dedicated floors and a processing chain that moves the companies work through the various floors. While the flow of information is still relevant... the need for physical proximity is now largely defunct. It is a legacy we cling to because it is the way it has "ALWAYS" been done. No more. Communications at the speed of light have changed what constitutes close proximity.
Some companies have begun to realize some of thus. For example they now understand they can move enitre cube farms all over the globe and still keep them interconnected in the same ways. Thus you can keep a management structure in Kentucky and a call center pool in Bangalore and keep them connected via a computer network. However, they are largely retaining the idea that you have to actually keep the workers concentrated in a single area. So they moved their prospective labor pool to bangalore along with that call center. What they have not taken to heart is that you can go one step farther in this regard. If you take your average cubical warrior and look at what they do you find something amazing. They could essentially be sitting anywhere they had a connection to the network, access to the needed software and still do their job. Thus not only can you distribute your departments but you can also truly distribute your labor pool. If you think about it... that blows the doors wide open on your potential labor pool from which to hire.
How so? If you adhere to the idea that you must physically concentrate your workers into a location (office) you have just limited your potential labor pool. IE there is a limitation to how far people can physically travel on a daily basis to work for you. Now we have learned that physical location is meaningless for a business that runs on computers so why not open yourself to the wider market of labor that is connected ? Some numbers. The worlds largest labor markets would be the worlds cities with the highest populations.
Now if you look at the Metro area populations and assume that this covers roughly the largest area from which you could concievably hire an employee from in a physical sense. In otherwords if you are located in that area and someone lives outside of that area the odds are they cannot commute to you place of business if you require a physical presence. Ok reffer to the chart and you find that Tokyo is the top place with around 37 million people of which a given subset will be potential employees with the skills you need.
Now lets look at a potential market of labor limited not by physcial space but by connectivity. Let us say that instead of needing a worker with X skills in Y location you need a worker with X skills with Y connectivity. We will say that Broadband solves Y connectivity. So now your potential labor pool are those that have the skills and a broadband connection. Check here for the numbers I will use to illustrate. In the US internet penetration is about 75%. Population is around 300 million. Broadband penetration is about 45%. So your potential labor market in the US is about 100 million. that is almost 3 times the potential market of having a business in the worlds largest metropolitan area. It also selects for a more tech oriented subset of the population so it is not unreasonable to expect that of that 100 million you will find a higher percentage of workers with the needed skills than you will in the metro area of tokyo. Remember those numbers are for raw population. That 100 million includes those tech savy enough to have a broad band connection. The 37 million in Tokyo just live there.
So in effect you can remove a great deal of the impetus for people to move to cities (JOBS) and the incipient drive up in realestate values that occurs in Metropolitan areas near desireable employment which in turn drives the higher metro sallaries (among other cost of living issues that all rise in areas with a high demand and low supply). You can redistribute work across the nation/world leading to more equitable access to work and probably re-stengthen Rural communities. Cost of living could decline dramatically, cost of labor (less dedicated infrastructure) could decline dramatically as well. Thus you can pay your employees the same thing without it costing you as much.. and sooner or later lower cost of living will lower the cost of sallaries as well.
Now the money issue is important. One of the reasons companies explored the option of going to Bangalore or South East Asia for manufacturing is because of the way international currency exchange works. IE what it takes for someone to live in South East Asia and India is a pittance in the international exhange market which is what leads to those asinine media headlines about paying an Indian call center worker a dollar a day/hour or some such. While it is true that the amount of money that person recieves would not buy much of anything if they came to America and exchanged their rupies for dollars it does not mean that they make less in their economy than a similar worker in the US. As a matter of fact a worker in an Indian Call center makes MORE money relative to their economy than a Call center worker in the United States. There those jobs are highly sought after where here theay are a bottom barrel option for fresh college graduates and out of work IT proffesionals.
Sooner or later that is going to have to change. The hallmark of currency systems has been standarziation over time to single currencies. IE in the US you can go look at the history whereby the states first used various international currencies, then developed their own local currencies and finally we established a fedearl system of currency for all states. Something similar is in process in the EU with the euro and over time we will see a move to standardize the international currency market. I think if the UN were an actual world government instead of a symbolic debating club we would have long since become embroiled in the debate of instablishing a universal international currency. Of course mose 1st world nations are scared shitless of such a concept and seeing as they have the power this is something they will not be easily swayed to do. The developed world has a very enviable position of advantage in the world economy curtesy of the strong value of their currencies.
So why is this issue of currency relevant to computers changing the world ? Well if my labor pool are those with Skills X and Bandwidth Y there is no dependent location limitation implied. IE there is no reason to limit yourself to the US broadband population with the skills you need. Given a potential employee wiith the skills you need and an insane exchange rate in your favor you can offer that people a pittance compared to what you would have to offer a US resident. And that causes problems. You see to protect somewhat from this there is very strong physical protections on who companies can hire. IE it is illegal to hire no visa mexican immigrants at cut rates and is all in all very easy to catch companies that do it if you have a mind to. Now imagine trying to enforce US (or any other nation for that matter) right to work visa laws if the workers are not physically located at the work site to be checked up on. It could probably be done but it would not be easy. And I would argue is largely pointless.
Without a solid consistent international currency we will remain in this mind set of having to PROTECT labor markets. The whole reason you have to protect them now has to do with currency exchange. The first force that looks like it might be a strong enough driver to break down the resistence to an internationall currency is going to be computers. The outsourcing has already begun, and the physical disbanding of office has as well (one new US airline does its reservation via people working at home). It is only a matter of time before the issues of who companies can and can't hire brings this issue to a head. The power of an international currecny should in tie serve to make it less and less important where you live in the world which will in turn dcrease the insane demands for the population to shift to the areas of strongest economy. In essence the combination of distributing work according to connectivity instead of physical location and establishing an international currency (thus NO more exhange at all) will more evenly distribute the world economy. In that case the places that will have immigration issues will be resort paradises as people will flock to desireable locations to ENJOY living in rather than desireable locations for access to good jobs. Access to a job will be a computer and good connection away which can be had anywhere. Access to a beach/mountain/river/lake etc are always going to be limited by physical location.
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