Globalization has had a consistently bad press in Europe, associated in the public mind with economic ills for which it is not responsible. It is the age-old reflex of shunning the unfamiliar. Far from being seen as an opportunity, globalization has triggered protective attitudes and fanned the flames of xenophobia and chauvinism. In France, fears that companies are shifting jobs to distant cheap-labour countries as part of the globalization process were a big issue in the recent parliamentary election. Globalization creates many more new jobs than it destroys, but in different sectors and areas.
Industries change under competitive pressure, as they always have done.
Some die, others adapt, and new ones emerge to replace those that go belly-up. These industrial changes, arising from new technologies and consumer demand, are undoubtedly speeded up by globalization. They have a direct effect on jobs. The blunt truth is that it takes more to be employable in a globalizing, increasingly high-tech world economy. Generally speaking, sectors shedding jobs in Europe over the past decade have been those requiring low average educational levels.