SWEATING IT: While they’re disappearing elsewhere in...
SWEATING IT: While they’re disappearing elsewhere in the nation, factory jobs in Orange County rose over the last 20 years, says UCLA geographer Allen J. Scott (D6). Yet wages have dropped. So what gives? The county’s high-tech industries, he contends, thrive on a system of “sweatshop” suppliers who employ lots of unskilled people, many of them illegal immigrants and poor women. . . . That could mean problems ahead, he says, since industries here will be in competition with nations such as Japan and Germany, where the work force is highly skilled.
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