Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[missdaredevil]

It risks* losing projects to* countries like China and India.

Could anyone explain that?

Thanks

[toe]

it sounds to me like a company provides some service
to a client. if the company's price for this service is too
high, this creates the opportunity for other companies
to take the client's business away.

in the united states, for example, factory workers must
be paid a certain wage. this makes the price of their
output go up, which means the manufacturing costs
can be higher than what the company wants to pay.
so, companies will look elsewhere for
a factory that doesn't have the same wage restrictions,
and hire them to do the work instead.

so in this example, the company that wanted the contract
had perhaps too high of a fee, and so maybe the client
would look to china or india to have their product
manufactured. "it risks losing projects to..."

but it could be any service whatsoever, not just
manufacturing. how about architectural design and building?
or business consulting?

(whew, that was a long answer. anyone else could have
probably used two sentences to explain )

^^
toe

[missdaredevil]

Thank you, Toe. For your long but worth-reading answer.
Pretty much all countries in the world risk losing jobs to China. A place that boasts cheaper workers and cheaper material.
In some rare cases, the cheaper goods we buy come at the expense of child labours working illegally at sweatshops.

[toe]

thanks, MissD~

i agree that sweatshops are an unfortunate situation. i have read that the american economy is suffering because consumers like to pay cheap prices, it's almost an addiction--seeking out "dollar stores" instead of paying more at a higher priced retail store.

i don't know if you are familiar with "dollar stores," but here in america, they are on just about every street corner in every neighborhood! they are always stocked full of just about anything you can think of and everything costs $1USD. wonder how many sweatshop items are in them?