Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Mudate para Asia .... (no Japón)

Want a Big Raise? Move to Asia (but Avoid Japan)


In China, 12 percent of employers surveyed last year increased salaries by more than 10 percent, and another 54 percent of companies gave raises ranging from 6 percent to 10 percent. The Year of the Horse looks to be a good year for workers, too, with Hays finding that 58 percent of Chinese employers surveyed expect to give raises of from 6 percent to 10 percent.
The one disappointment, not surprisingly, is Japan. Stagnant wage growth is a problem for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plan to revive the country’s economy. Base salaries (excluding overtime and bonuses) fell 0.2 percent in December compared to a year earlier. That’s the 19th consecutive month of declining wages.
With prices already rising and a tax increase scheduled to hit in April, consumers need to take home more money in order to feel comfortable spending. That’s why Abe has been using his bully pulpit to pressure Japanese companies to raise wages. The government’s goal is “profits rise, then salaries rise, so consumption will increase, and again profits will rise. We get into a virtuous cycle,” Abe said in an interview with Bloomberg News in December. “What we want is for wages to rise more than prices.”
Employers in Japan haven’t been too generous, though. According to the Hays survey, 16 percent of Japanese companies gave workers no raise last year, while the 64 percent that did increase salaries limited the raises to less than 3 percent. The outlook is pretty much the same this year, with 64 percent expecting raises of zero to 3 percent and 12 percent of employers surveyed saying they don’t expect to give raises at all.
Another of Abe’s goals is to increase the role of women in the Japanese workforce. Japan ranked 105th among 136 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report last year, and improving prospects for women who want to work is a “vital component” of Abenomics, the Prime Minister wrote in the Wall Street Journal last September. By the time Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games in 2020, he wants women to hold 30 percent of leadership positions in Japanese society.
Again, though, the Hays report shows just how much Japan lags behind the rest of the region. When asked the percentage of women in management positions, China did best  with 36 percent, followed by Hong Kong at 33 percent, Malaysia at 29 percent, and Singapore at 27 percent. Japan was last, with women holding only 15 percent of management positions at companies surveyebd.

Einhorn is Asia regional editor in Bloomberg Businessweek’s Hong Kong bureau. Follow him on Twitter @BruceEinhorn.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Visita CAMACOL Delegación de Polonia

El pasado día 30 de enero visitó CAMACOL una amplia delegación polaca encabezada por Su Excelencia Ryszard Schnepf, embajador de Polonia en los Estados Unidos de América. El propósito de esta visita es impulsar el proceso de cooperación entre CAMACOL y la Cámara Polaco-Americana de Florida iniciado hace algún tiempo para desarrollar a plenitud la presencia de Polonia en el Congreso Hemisférico de Cámaras de Comercio e Industria Latinas que por 35 años ha desarrollado CAMACOL para el mutuo beneficio de todo el Hemisferio y que se ha extendido a Europa y Asia. 

Es el propósito de Polonia convertirse en un socio clave en el desarrollo del comercio internacional y de la cooperación económica con nuestro hemisferio, utilizando la infraestructura, la experiencia y las herramientas desarrolladas por CAMACOL. A esos efectos es esencial que todos nuestros empresarios en Florida, en todos los Estados Unidos y en el continente, conozcan de este empeño y aprovechen esas relaciones para lo que significan para el crecimiento económico y el bienestar de nuestra comunidad y todo nuestro Estado.

A continuación, tenemos el placer de ofrecerles imágenes de ese encuentro con los amigos polacos:


La Página WEB oficial de la  Embajada de Polonia en Washington se hizo eco de esta importante actividad y aprovechó la oportunidad para informar al mundo de esos propósitos.