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Sophie Cuvelliez has a job in a Swiss bank,
but despite working in one of the world’s richest, most stable economies,
she’s worried about her future.
“I don’t think I will be better off next year at this time.
The banking sector in Switzerland is very uncertain.
I am very concerned about keeping my job.”
Joao Carlos Cruz works in a bank in Portugal.
He’s got the same fears about the future.
“Financially speaking, I’m worse off than 10 years ago.”
5 years ago I managed to save some money, which I can’t do today.”
The International Labour Organization’s Global Wage Report
says workers in richer, developed countries suffered a double dip in their wages
even where there was a long-term rise in productivity….
“We would expect wages to rise with productivity
but we’ve looked at a number of countries over the last 20 to 30 years and
we found that there is sort of a broken link
between wages and productivity
and the result of that
is that the labour income share in GDP is going down,
which essentially means that workers are getting a smaller share of the pie.”
It’s an on-going trend, aggravated by trade globalization,
technological progress, declining trade union membership
and what experts call:
the financialization of the real economy.
“…which is basically the growing role of the financial markets on investments,
on the behaviours of companies and what we see here
is that a growing part of the earnings of companies
are going into dividends and a smaller part is left for increasing wages.”
Marc-Andre Cartier’s company has produced chocolates in Geneva for 150 years.
The recession’s been *** business
but he prefers to take a long-term approach with his employees
for the sake of their future and the company.
“We’ve were able to make a slight increase in our staff’s wages,
around 3 to 5 percent, in order to motivate them
and above all to keep them with us.
For us, that’s important.
We’ve been here a long time and the most important thing is loyalty,
to keep our people with us.”
Some regions like Asia, parts of Africa and Latin America
have seen stronger economic growth and workers are earning more.
You can hear the sense of optimism in emerging economies like Brazil.
Onézimo Eloi da Silva is a factory worker there
and will build a house on land he bought.
“My life is much better than five years ago.
And I strongly believe that five years from now
me and my family will be much, much better off than we are today.
At Cartier chocolates, the hope is much the same…
“The point is not to make money, necessarily….
we’re not millionaires.
We’re here because we love our work
and we want to perpetuate the company and our vision in the long term.
I think that in 5 years things will be better …”