Perceived Shortages of Unskilled Labor in Labor Surplus Economies: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Dominican Republic and Mexico&ast

Warren J Bilkey
Additional contact information
Warren J Bilkey: University of Wisconsin

Journal of International Business Studies, 1972, vol. 3, issue 2, 18 pages

Abstract: Cheap labor is a major incentive for investing in developing countries, especially for export production involving capital extensive processes utilizing unskilled labor. Unfortunately, international investors will tend to overestimate the availability of unskilled labor if they assume that workers in developing countries all have the “industrialized” traits necessary for performing even unskilled labor. These traits are: coming to work on time, following directions, accepting guidance from the boss, working on an established schedule, being sober while working, and so on. (Subsistance agriculture does not inculcate such traits, and a large portion of the labor force in most developing countries are migrants from subsistance agriculture.) Laborers also must be sufficiently healthy to come to work regularly, they must be strong enough to do the job required, and they must be emotionally stable. In addition, frictions to geographical movement could cause local shortages of unskilled labor even if the region as a whole has a labor surplus.© 1972 JIBS. Journal of International Business Studies (1972) 3, 1–18

Date: 1972
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v3/n2/pdf/8490743a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v3/n2/full/8490743a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:jintbs:v:3:y:1972:i:2:p:1-18

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/41267/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Business Studies is currently edited by John Cantwell

More articles in Journal of International Business Studies from Palgrave Macmillan, Academy of International Business
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().