Half US jobs go US born

Originally posted by wolfgang59
So what is the link between productivity and wages?

Australian skilled labor can command labor/accommodation/travel costs for the company 5 times that of unskilled local labor because they are more than 5 times as productive.

That's a very round figure, it depends on a lot of factors. If we could hire more locals at lower rates and get the same production we would do it, even if it meant bending rules.

Another example is a piece of one off prototype machinery recently developed. Manufactured in Korea even though it would have been cheaper to manufacture in China.

I concede that quality in both cases is a driving factor but then producing a quality product versus producing something of low quality is a factor of production is it not.

I also concede that this is a pretty pointless conversation. KN likes to underestimate the link between wages and production based on widgets, I like to take a more realistic view based on direct experience. But in either case it's difficult to quantify the link.