ABSTRACT
From the expansion of industrialisation in the twentieth century, workers' collective position of power and their individual existence have repeatedly been undermined by plant shutdowns or downsizing due to relocation of production elsewhere. Since the 1960s and 1970s, multinational companies have internationalised considerable parts of labour-intensive production into the subsidiaries in low-cost areas. With regard to the internationalisation of services which partially also includes the internationalisation of R&D and production-related services Crin analysed data of nine Western European countries for the period of 1995 to 2006, revealing weak positive effects on labour demand. For the manufacturing industries in France, Besson, Durand and Miroudot note an acceleration of globalisation from 1990 to 2009. There is little empirical evidence for alarming trends in the Global North resulting from the global race for talent'. Conditions remain difficult for international investment in many peripheries of the world economy, and dense actor networks and institutional arrangements in the core economies adapt to anticipated change.
