How to Cope With Globalization in 10 or 20 years? By Sean Salvator Stanley Hendarto (XII A2/41)

Globalization can be described as the increased movement of people, knowledge, ideas, goods and money across national borders to make the world more incorporated in a sense. It is an instrument of social change, aiding to eliminate and eradicate poverty, lessen child labor, and increase literacy and knowledge. Globalization is caused by:

1.      Improved transport, making global travel easier. For example, there has been a rapid growth in air-travel, enabling greater movement of people and goods across the globe.

2.      Containerisation, From 1970, there was a rapid adoption of the steel transport container. This reduced the costs of inter-modal transport, making trade cheaper and more efficient.

3.      Improved technology which makes it easier to communicate and share information around the world. E.g. internet. For example, to work on improvements on this website, I will go to a global online community, like elance.com. There, people from any country can bid for the right to provide a service. It means that I can often find people to do a job relatively cheaply because labour costs are relatively lower in the Indian sub-continent.

4.      Growth of multinational companies with a global presence in many different economies.

5.      Growth global trading blocks which have reduced national barriers. (e.g. European Union, NAFTA, ASEAN)

6.      Reduced tariff barriers encourage global trade. Often this has occurred through the support of the WTO.

7.      Firms exploiting gains from economies of scale to gain increased specialisation. This is an essential feature of new trade theory.

8.      Growth of global media.

9.      Global trade cycle. Economic growth is global in nature. This means countries are increasingly interconnected. (e.g. recession in one country affects global trade and invariably causes an economic downturn in major trading partners.)

10.  Financial system increasingly global in nature. When US banks suffered losses due to sub-prime mortgage crisis, it affected all major banks in other countries who had bought financial derivatives from US banks and mortgage companies.

11.  Improved mobility of capital.  In past few decades, there has been a general reduction in capital barriers, making it easier for capital to flow between different economies. This has increased the ability for firms to receive finance. It has also increased the global interconnectedness of global financial markets.

12.  Increased mobility of labour. People are more willing to move between different countries in search for work. Global trade remittances now play a large role in transfers from developed countries to developing countries.

With this, one of its major effects is new job opportunities in the market due to more local and foreign companies developing further to help boost the economy globally. Thanks to globalization, there are new jobs that have been created, and emerging over time.

1) Interpreters and Translators. As “building bridges”, they support in communication by translating messages or text from one language to another. Interpreters translate verbally, while translators interpret written text; however, both of them possess wide-ranging knowledge of more than one language. Globalization outgrows the demand for people like them to communicate and translate multiple languages — Japanese, French, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic being the topmost languages for international business. Due to more foreign companies emerging nowadays, the number of people employed in the translation and interpretation field is also rising quickly.

2) Market Research Analysts. As the world changes, the differences between countries expand, significantly affecting research methods. Market Research Analysts collect valuable insights pertaining to local, regional, national, and international aspects of the market. Taking a company global is a big step for any company, indeed. In order to be successful, it is very important for a company to know the needs and wants of the consumers worldwide, and where they do business with. That’s why market researchers should build convincing expertise to properly know the market in order to effectively deliver the research services they are assigned to implement.

3) Computer and IT Professionals. Unquestionably, due to the rise of modern technology, the demand for this kind of profession has also grown. A number of developments are increasing in the 21st century that point to what may be a new era for our world’s economy. Information technology is basically restructuring business practices, which has increased the efficiency of business operations globally. With the spread of information technology, it has made production networks even cheaper and easier because of the Internet, which is cost effective, and has been essential in economic globalization.

4) Customer Service Representatives. We can’t deny the fact that customer satisfaction is a top business priority, and since business is increasing globally, companies nowadays are implementing ways to serve local and international audiences 24 hours, 7 days a week. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is undeniably one of the fastest-growing sectors here in the Philippines. If in the past, the remittances of the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) were the top revenue of the country, today, the rise of the BPO industry is already the top source of income. It has definitely played a big role with a positive impact in the Philippine economy that significantly helped the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), and which popularized the Philippines as the “BPO Capital of the World”.

With globalization on the rise, more and more job opportunities will more likely be developed over time. Globalization can make a developing country like the Philippines a “better” nation if only leaders help advance the economy through global trading and allowing more foreign investors to enter the country. With that, the Philippines and other developing countries would be able to reduce the poverty level, as well as increase the labor force to take on new job opportunities. There is so much to look forward to on the economic and business front in the years to come, thanks to globalization.