Employment relations in the growing Asian economies

This book analyses the role of employment relations in the context of economic development in some of the key Asian economies: China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. In recent years, these Asian economies have become increasingly more open and export-driven, and there is strong interest all over the world in the Asian economic 'miracle' among practitioners and scholars alike. Although much has been written on this region, few books have concentrated on the human resource aspects of this growth. The authors take the basic premise that the success of these countries has lain in low wages and suppression of workers' rights, but recognize that as employment relations evolve, enterprises either pull out due to rising wages, or adapt and remain - cases are provided to illustrate both these features. Cases also test the hypothesis that unless a synergy is created between firm-level and state-level human resource policies, economic growth is unlikely to be sustainable.