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Workers in their 20s—the garment industry’s traditional labor force—routinely drop out of his company’s training program, Norriss said. Those who stay often work for just a couple of years. Norriss hopes that dialing up the workplace cool quotient might make a difference. “Everybody wants to be an Instagrammer or a photographer or a stylist or work at a coffee shop,” he said. In response to the crisis, Asian factories have had to increase wages and adopt sometimes costly strategies to retain workers, from improving cafeteria fare to building kindergartens for workers’ children. 

Something incredibly funny is happening in the electronics industry. So labour in PRC and ROC etc is getting so much more epxnesive, as noted in this article (the stuff about wanting to be photographers etc is smoke and mirrors imo, capitalists want to distract from people wanting higher pay) .

At the same time, you have this failed economy of india right there, with a fascist govt desperately looking for private parts of imperialists to suck on (pre-2014 the main difference was the level of fascism). So companies were like, let's move production there right? But the workforce is too undernourished and undereducated to be profitable, and companies that moved in are moving out.

Recently, foxconn withdrew out of a deal with modi to set up a parts assembly (the least skilled part of the process) factory in gujarat. the bjp was going to pay 70% of the set-up costs, and it was still not worth it for foxconn.

I am genuinely curious to see what global imperialism does. in the 70s there was this incredible pool of well-educated well-fed workers that opened up thanks to mao-era policy. i don't know of any place like that that can be used to deal with the current crisis, esp given all the different dimensions it has.

Maybe some sort of global imperialist social democracy a la ministry of the future, where the chokehold on third world social spending is loosened just enough to supply the workers for china and the first world?

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Anyway, the following paragraph in the article is an entertaining lie:

India has a huge population, and firms seeking alternatives to China are expanding there. But even in India, factory managers are beginning to complain about the difficulties of retaining young workers. Many young people prefer farm life supported by state welfare programs or choose gig work in cities over living in factory dormitories in industrial hubs. Trained engineers leave factories for IT jobs.  

Almost half of India is unemployed. >100 million youth among them.

"farm life supported by state welfare programs" is certainly a correct phrase in the grammatical sense.

By "factory dorms" they mean something more akin to slums over an hour away from the factory where they are supposed to spend 10-12 hours.

Here is an account showing how easy it is for trained engineers to move to IT:

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Also was reminded of best response to banana discourse:

The farm laws, conceptualised by the imf and pushed through by the neoliberals (Congres+bjp) and the fascists (bjp) in parliament, were an attempt to dismantle these husks of protections. led to the farmers protests.

some good articles from a left-lib outlet:

Throughout the day, partners would make requests for connection, what Gottman calls “bids.” For example, say that the husband is a bird enthusiast and notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, “Look at that beautiful bird outside!” He’s not just commenting on the bird here: He’s requesting a response from his wife—a sign of interest or support—hoping they’ll connect, however momentarily, over the bird.

The wife now has a choice. She can respond by either “turning toward” or “turning away” from her husband, as Gottman puts it. Though the bird-bid might seem minor and silly, it can actually reveal a lot about the health of the relationship. The husband thought the bird was important enough to bring it up in conversation and the question is whether his wife recognizes and respects that.

These bidding interactions had profound effects on marital well-being. Couples who had divorced after a six-year follow-up had “turn-toward bids” 33 percent of the time. Only three in 10 of their bids for emotional connection were met with intimacy. The couples who were still together after six years had “turn-toward bids” 87 percent of the time. Nine times out of 10, they were meeting their partner’s emotional needs.

Children are desperate to teach the wonders of the world that they know, that they have just learned, and share it with anyone interested.  Adults pour passion they didn’t know they had into voluntary obligations, and crave a simple acknowledgment of that passion as being worthy and valid. 

“Dear third grader, tell me exactly why you chose <x> as you third favorite carnivorous dinosaur instead of second, as specifically as possible.”

also if you wanna donate to some charities & nonprofits to support indigenous CHamoru people who are struggling as their islands are actively being colonized via US military influence and white tourism, & those currently living lågu (in the states):

para todus hit

sons & daughters of guam club

house of chamorros

kutturan chamoru foundation