Social Contracts Under Siege: National Responses to Globalized and Europeanized Production in Europe

Abstract

“Offshoring,” “delocalization,” going south or east: whatever the words, the issue of jobs moving not just out of firm or out of town but out of country and out of continent due to the forces of globalization is not new. What is new is that offshore outsourcing has been affecting not just manufacturing but also, and increasingly, services. This has been a cause for concern because the rise in services has long been seen as compensating for the decline in manufacturing. In Europe, moreover, enlargement to Eastern Europe combined with the Single Market liberalization program, in particular with regard to the recent attempt to liberalize services, adds pressures of Europeanization to globalization, as jobs move eastward in the EU as much as out of the EU. To worries about nearshore outsourcing resulting from Europeanization, however, have also come those about nearshore insourcing, as workers move in from Eastern Europe while jobs move out.