In July, the German company Siemens made their employees the following offer: work five hours longer per week for no extra pay, otherwise we'll move your jobs to Hungary. Their employees had no choice but to agree.

In the era of global competition, companies must find ways to remain competitive, which often means cutting labour costs by reducing wages and benefits, relocating to lower-wage countries, hiring employees on temporary, part-time and freelance contracts or even by laying employees off.

A further way to reduce labour costs is , such as accounting or information technology. Indeed, General Electric, an American company has created what it calls its „70-70-70” plan. It wishes to outsource 70% of its , move 70% of its outsourcing offshore (i.e. abroad) and locate 70% of its workers in India. Indeed, reducing the number of outsourced jobs is one of the main themes of John Kerry's presidential election campaign.