Professor Andrew Beer just published a short article on theconversation.com, focusing on the real impacts resulted from the decisions of large industry actors and the lack of preparedness of governments to deal with such impacts.
The specific case to which Andrew is referring to is the decision of General Motors to stop manufacturing in Australia starting from 2017. He points out that the first and visible impact of this decision will be the loss of around 2900 jobs nationwide. However, usually talk regarding these issues stop at economic policy. Real human impacts and consequences that affect much more than just the economic policy, but rather workers, their families and in this case the automotive industry as a whole are somewhat ignored. These are long term impacts that have to be considered together with the global exposure of the automotive industry and its contracting trend.
Andrew emphasizes that in this context, short-term solutions like subsidies are to be taken with a grain of salt, and efforts should focus on creating more flexible, adaptive and pro-active solutions that can quickly respond to local and global change.
Building the case by also drawing on lessons from European countries and their use of EU Funds, Andrew points out that measures have to materialize in “well-considered strategies to build long term competitiveness” with a cross-sectoral approach. At the same time actions should focus on creating a common and inclusive agenda for growth.
To read the whole article visit theconversation.com
Professor Andrew Beer, PhD, is the Chair of the Regional Studies Association, and the Director of the Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Adelaide.