Wednesday 9 May 2012

Wise Allocation of Labour Resources

Some people criticize Australia for importing so many of its manufactured goods. They claim it robs Australians of jobs. But I think it's actually better for Australia economically that a lot of our manufactured goods are imported rather than made here, because:

* It would cost us more to manufacture some of those goods than it does to import them

* Any legislation designed to prevent us from importing such goods would effectively deny Australians the freedom to obtain manufactured goods as cheaply as we can

* To protect one Australian industry - the manufacturing sector - would be to disadvantage another Australian industry - private businesses in the retail sector, which are nonetheless Australian businesses

* Australia currently has a labour shortage and is needing to source labour overseas - so it can't really be said that imports are robbing Australians of the opportunity to work

* It makes better economic sense to have the majority of a nation's labour resource occupied in industries where the nation is internationally competitive (in Australia's case, mining, for example) rather than occupied in industries where it can't compete (in Australia's case, automobile, electronics and textile manufacture)

* Outsourcing manufacture to other nations is a more responsible and sustainable form of foreign aid than outright charitable grants are


However I do think Australia should always maintain at least a certain amount of ability to manufacture, so that in the event of war, we are not dependant on another country with whom we may be at war.

No comments:

Post a Comment