Again, I think you’re misunderstanding. “Unskilled labour” by the Western definition is already considered decently skilled. This was a problem that China ran into as they industrialized and it’s a problem that African countries will also run into: there simply isn’t enough well-trained, experienced skilled labour. People are aware of this.
You can’t train a nuclear physicist if you can’t train an electrical engineer, and you can’t train an electrical engineer if you can’t train a construction worker. This doesn’t solve the problem of nuclear physicist or electrical engineer, but it should at least solve the problem of construction worker.
I know some people are aware of it, but not everyone.
Also, China is in the habit of not even training the construction worker. Chinese SOE’s have a lot of projects being built outside of China that don’t use local labor except for the most basic tasks. This is different from a lot of Western companies that will generally tap more into the local labor pool.
This isn’t a value judgement one way or another, but a statement of differences between the two.
Oh for sure, Western projects do tap more of the local labour pool. They’re also more likely to be overbudget and behind schedule (California HSR and most transit/rail projects in the US, etc). To some degree, that’s just a difference in management technique and there’s definitely an advantage to training more workers at the cost of time and money.
On the other hand, those “basic” tasks only seem basic because we have had a proper Western education… And that’s not something we should be taking for granted.
Again, I think you’re misunderstanding. “Unskilled labour” by the Western definition is already considered decently skilled. This was a problem that China ran into as they industrialized and it’s a problem that African countries will also run into: there simply isn’t enough well-trained, experienced skilled labour. People are aware of this.
You can’t train a nuclear physicist if you can’t train an electrical engineer, and you can’t train an electrical engineer if you can’t train a construction worker. This doesn’t solve the problem of nuclear physicist or electrical engineer, but it should at least solve the problem of construction worker.
I know some people are aware of it, but not everyone.
Also, China is in the habit of not even training the construction worker. Chinese SOE’s have a lot of projects being built outside of China that don’t use local labor except for the most basic tasks. This is different from a lot of Western companies that will generally tap more into the local labor pool.
This isn’t a value judgement one way or another, but a statement of differences between the two.
Oh for sure, Western projects do tap more of the local labour pool. They’re also more likely to be overbudget and behind schedule (California HSR and most transit/rail projects in the US, etc). To some degree, that’s just a difference in management technique and there’s definitely an advantage to training more workers at the cost of time and money.
On the other hand, those “basic” tasks only seem basic because we have had a proper Western education… And that’s not something we should be taking for granted.