The New Offshoring of Jobs and Global Development

Book excerpt: This book is based on the 7th ILO Social Policy Lectures, which are endowed with the ILO's Nobel Peace Prize, held in Kingston, Jamaica in December 2005. In keeping with the topics covered in the lecture series, it uses the global value chains perspective to look at how offshore outsourcing has affected the quantity and quality of jobs in the global economy. While offering an overview of the contemporary global labour market, the book examines the issue of global consolidation and industrial upgrading and its promise and perils for development. It introduces an analytical framework for linking jobs in the industrial structures of both advanced and developing economies through the dynamics of global value chains. It reviews the strategies of leading firms global retailers, branded marketers, and brand-name manufacturers and considers the conceptualisation of jobs in the global economy not by their location in particular industries or countries, but by their role in global value chains.The author argues that, given the special features of global value chains, there is a need to reconsider the contemporary notions of global corporate social responsibility and private as well as public governance