Alan Tonelson, who represents small- and medium-sized manufacturers, called this “ultimately a losing proposition” and feels that no amount of labor-saving technology can offset the low wages, huge pools of workers, and lower overall capital costs in China, India, and some Third World nations.

In his book, Race to the Bottom, he writes that the United States “will never be able to compete with them simply by cost-cutting.”

He points out that in the past 10 years, imports have gained a larger share of the U.S. home market, and that free trade agreements, beginning with NAFTA in 1994, fueled a surge in imports by ‘’sending jobs, production and, increasingly, research and development overseas.”

In an interview with the Akron Beacon Journal, he acknowledged that some U.S. manufacturers (i.e., Illinois-based equipment company Caterpillar) have managed to “keep their employment levels pretty high by cutting wages.”

He highlights its “two-tier wage systems” where workers are now making $10 to $14 an hour at jobs that had paid double that or more.

He thinks that ultimately, the U.S. middle class will be gutted.

”The division of the country into a relatively small number of high-income earners and a much larger pool of working poor will greatly accelerate. In other words, the social profile of the United States will start to resemble that of Third World countries,” he said.

Is there a shortage or a surplus of engineers in China? Some sources report hundreds of recent engineering graduates being turned away from job fairs because all the open positions have been filled.

Yet, in another article, the author bemoans the lack of electrical engineers. Other confusing facts cloud the picture. Is India running out of English-speaking professionals to fill the outsourcing positions that have grown so rapidly over the past decade? Does the Philippines have the quality of English speakers American and British firms need?

Most of my recruiting colleagues in the United States can’t answer those questions. They struggle to build effective recruiting teams in Asia. They have a hard time finding competent recruiters and even more trouble finding high-quality candidates.

Many don’t even know where to begin when they are chartered with putting an Asian recruiting effort into place and are confused over figures and facts that often seem to contradict themselves, like those I have mentioned above.

Any new territory can be confusing and contradictory to those who do not have an inside view. Reports about the United States in European papers 200 years ago contained similar stories about skill shortages and glowing reports of opportunities that, in many cases, didn’t really exist. It requires the help of experts who are already there or at least the assistance of experienced guides to keep you on track.

Today in China, colleges and universities are turning out many hundreds of graduates, but many lack the level of skill that European and American firms expect. Some schools that are called colleges are, at best, technical schools and the graduates, at best, are technicians with hands-on knowledge but without the physics and math and other engineering subjects taught in the west. A recruiter has to be well-versed in each school, its curriculum, and reputation.

On the other hand, there is also a shortage of jobs for skilled people. While the economy of China is red hot and growing fast, it still can not produce enough jobs for everyone qualified.

That’s why it is both easy and hard for a firm outside the system to understand the paradoxes and nuances of this vast country. Finding a recruiter who knows this and can live successfully in the culture is certainly a challenge.

And, yes, India is facing a shortage of skilled people who are fluent in English. This primarily affects call centers, but actually has little effect on programming or other technical discipline where one or two English speakers can act as the spokespeople for the others.

Even though the demand is growing for English-speaking folks, many educated Indians are turning away from working for foreign firms. They are starting their own firms to supply India and China.

This further reduces the potential pool of candidates. The same applies to the Philippines and other countries with pools of English-speaking citizens.

Asian recruitment also encompasses Australia and New Zealand. In both countries, economies are vibrant and growing because of increased trade with China and the rest of Asia.

This has led to a huge talent shortage and increased competitive pressure to recruit better and faster. New Zealand, with just about four million citizens, suffers the most. Much of its talent goes off to Europe or Australia or elsewhere in Asia in search of greater opportunities and higher salaries.

Australia, with about 20 million people, has a similar problem; however, its larger size offers slightly more opportunity.

The number of European and American organizations that are recruiting in Asia, including Australia and New Zealand, has been steadily growing over the past decade. Every major organization has at least one recruiter in Asia and many smaller organizations have at least engaged a third-party recruitment firm or have outsourced their recruitment to a recruitment process outsourcing firm.

The markets are very competitive and only the best recruiters can really make a successful living. It is easy to make mistakes and hire the wrong recruiters as well as the wrong candidates.

Nothing replaces prior experience and a philosophy of trial and error as you enter these markets. Very few organizations get it right the first time they try.

Yet, despite all this activity, most recruiters don’t have the time to learn and don’t have much real understanding of the Asian talent space, particularly in China and India. Whether this is caused by distance, culture, language, or cost, it is having a negative impact on many organizations.

They are not hiring the best people and they are not really engaged positively in the Asian talent communities. Some firms send a recruiter from home and put them into the role of leading a recruiting effort. This is a useful practice, as over time, they will learn how to function well and become effective.

However, during that process, they will need guides to help them and they will need an accelerated learning process. Many times exported American or European recruiters struggle to adjust to the Asian environment and, in the process, create issues that could have been avoided had they had some training and access to a few experts to help out.

Australasian Talent Conference

In an effort to begin raising the general level of knowledge and provide a forum for learning and discussion, I have joined with another firm in Australia to create the Australasian Talent Conference.

This conference will provide an overview to the Australasian talent marketplace and put you in touch with scores of other recruiters and HR professionals who are either based in Asia or have responsibility and interest in the Asian area.

You will meet people who can guide you in developing a better recruiting or development function in the region and you will hear from many experts in the area.

Each year the conference will be held in a different Asian country. The inaugural event will take place in beautiful Sydney, Australia, from March 20 to March 22.

The conference is open to human resource professional, trainers, leadership development experts, and recruiters from the United States, Europe, and Asia. We have assembled a powerful list of speakers and have invited a large number of Asia recruitment technology companies, service providers, and recruitment agencies to join us.

We will be looking at trends, case studies, best practices, and practical solutions to the issues every company faces in Asia.

If you are concerned about your firm’s ability to successfully compete for talent in any Asian country, this is the conference you should attend. Spread the word and help make this the best source of recruitment knowledge there is in Asia.

According to India-based blogger Gautam Ghosh, there are more than 20,000 recruitment firms in India already. Many Indian recruiters, along with their counterparts in Singapore, Australia, Ireland, and elsewhere, understand that the pursuit of top talent is global. And in many cases, these recruiters have their governments behind them. In India, ongoing global promotions brand the country itself as a great place to work, live, and study. The government of India is working to convince the best of the massive Indian Diaspora to return home ó often appealing to a sense of patriotism and offering opportunities that might be hard to come by even in the United States. While I was in India last month, two world-renowned scientists who had been invited to the United States by American universities became so frustrated with the U.S. immigration procedures that they publicly declared they had no further interest in setting foot in the United States.

A Bigger World for Recruiters

Recruiters had it easy before 1995. Relatively high unemployment and a steady, if small surplus of talent combined with low turnover made it a cushy job. The “War for Talent” between 1995 and 2000 created a new recruiter, far more aggressive, far more technologically savvy and far more connected. After a three- to four-year lull, the game is again changing for recruiters. For a short while, some may get away with a provincial, shortsighted view of talent. But while they’re tapping an ever-decreasing pool of US-based talent, their colleagues and competitors will be nurturing global relationships and building their networks into the farthest reaches of the planet. Needless to say, the latter will ultimately prevail. Having recently returned from a six-day, three-city tour that started in Delhi and ended in Bangalore, I urge recruiting executives to get on the plane and go East.

I traveled with executives from DNL Global, an innovative recruiting firm based in Dallas, that saw the light years ago and has already built an impressive clientele both in India and the United States around the identification and recruitment of globally capable managers. As DNL builds its global talent pools, it will become a “go to” firm for companies desperate for the type of talent and thought leadership that can build bridges and create a competitive advantage in the global workforce. In the best Indian business schools and in the top companies, one seldom hears HR and recruiting discussed in their traditional sense. In a nation that has been the recipient of more HR and recruitment outsourcing business than anywhere else, India’s answer to skill shortages and sky-high attrition rates is an emphasis on talent management. Everywhere I went, organizations were immersed in strategic workforce planning and analytics. They were tying performance management and retention to compensation. Due to high attrition, “talent relationship management” is approached methodically and creatively in many of the business-process-outsourcing call centers I visited. Everywhere, employment-brand building, particularly through heavy investment in employee development, is a cornerstone of workforce initiatives.

On the acquisition front, Indian multinationals are nurturing relationships with talent while in school, building talent pools and enticing overseas workers, particularly those who left India and have built skills in the west. In the business-process-outsourcing call centers, some are reaching into high schools to develop call-center skills so that they will no longer have to rely solely on college graduates for the millions of customer-service positions being created each year. I’m not surprised that the conversations I had with business leaders, human capital consultants, and university professors in Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Bangalore are so similar to those I have in North America. While there remains a massive income, poverty, and infrastructure gap between cities in India and the West, the language of business and human capital management is nearly identical. Human capital professionals and leaders in the West have as much to learn from their counterparts in India as the other way around. I had to learn this for myself, and so should you.