As China’s Workforce Dwindles, the World Scrambles for Alternatives

GILLES SABRIÉ FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
GILLES SABRIÉ FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

While China’s economic downturn is providing some respite from the labor crunch, Crystal’s blue-jeans factory here still pays 20% above the market rate. It organizes cooking classes and singing contests to keep workers happy. 

Last month, China announced it was abolishing its decades-old policy restricting most couples to one child. But that won’t likely put much of a dent in the country’s looming demographic problem because relatively few Chinese prefer to have more than one child, economists note—and it will be at least 16 years before any additional babies make it to the job market.

Fearing that China will see an exodus of manufacturers, Chinese Communist Party Chief Xi Jinping last year called for “an industrial robot revolution” in China, which has become the world’s largest market for automation.

GILLES SABRIÉ FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
GILLES SABRIÉ FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Looking ahead to 2050, the future appears mixed for consumers around the globe. Low-cost production in China has helped suppress inflation in the U.S., Europe and at home. It is an open question whether automation can hold down costs as effectively as Chinese peasant labor did. But consumers should look forward to more choice, faster delivery and, perhaps, less harm to the environment. (By KATHY CHU and BOB DAVIS for WSJ)

The whole article and more pictures on Wall Street Journal:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-chinas-workforce-dwindles-the-world-scrambles-for-alternatives-1448293942

Gilles Sabrié is an editorial, portrait and corporate  photographer based in Beijing.
He has worked for over a decade in East and South-East Asia, documenting the staggering change the region has been going through. His work has been published in numerous publications worldwide, among many others, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Time magazine, Geo, National,  Geographic, Der Spiegel, L’Espresso, The Observer, The Guardian… His corporate clients include among others, Apple, Nestlé, Mc Kinsey…

Vietnam: Once we were soldiers

Karl Mancini
Karl Mancini

(Vietnam, 2015). Fifty years ago it began the war against USA. Forty years ago, with the conquest of Saigon the North, Vietnamese Army won the war and thousands of veterans came back to their villages trying to start a new life. Today, just in Huè (Central Vietnam) which was one of the more hit part of the country by the fighting, close to the DMZ zone, there were settled 25.000 veterans, 4.000 of them are invalid and 2.000 victims of the Agent Orange. They have a lot of problems to solve, as how to build a new life with their families.

Karl Mancini
Karl Mancini

In fact, many Veterans didn’t get married at that time. But the entire community welcomed them as heroes, in particular North Vietnamese, while in the south the situation was different because of the long presence of the American Army there. South Veteran’s Families were scared of the revenges but after some years the situation was changed and the harmony was established again. Today, after 40 years, there are no longer distances and they live all together. – See more at: http://www.echophotojournalism.com/stories/once-we-were-soldiers#sthash.LFPKwBhh.dpuf

Karl Mancini
Since 2001 he has visited more than 80 countries, with a particular preference for Asia and South America,  following the socio-historical and political events , working as a freelance photojournalist and writer by focusing with particular attention issues such as child labor, violence against women, the tragic story of landmines (to which he have devoted years of work) and genocide that he documented  in 8 different countries. He studied photography in Rome, to achieve the Masterclass in contemporary journalism. Karl has joined Echo in 2015 as a staff photographer. – See more at: http://www.echophotojournalism.com/photographers/karl-mancini-1#sthash.AaYB1y6Z.dpuf

Vivek Singh: Frontier Dispatches

Vivek Singh
Vivek Singh

Frontier dispatches is a series of reportages from the peripheral areas of India and beyond. India’s northeast, connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land called the chicken’s neck shares more than ninety percent of its border with Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh. The region is a fragmented jigsaw of indigenous people in one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse parts of Asia.

Vivek Singh
Vivek Singh

This first exhibition in what will be a series through this and the coming year, is a show about a unique protest in Churachandpur, Manipur, from the very fringes of the North-East.

FRONTIER DISPATCHES: VIVEK SINGH at BANANA HOUSE, Plot 433, Lane D-22 | 100 Feet Road, Chattarpur Hills | New Delhi – 110074 | November 14, 2015 | 6 PM

Vivek Singh
Vivek Singh

http://frontierdispatches.in

Vivek Singh is a documentary photographer based in Delhi, India. He has been contributing regularly to Der Spiegel, CNN.com, The Wall Street
Journal, and The New York Times’ first country-specific website, India Ink. More infos on the photographer and his work:

http://www.viveksinghphoto.com/about/

 

Photo festival director sacked after a flood of sexual harassment allegations emerge online

Very good round-up about the sexual harassment allegations against Manik Katyal and so important that women and men stand up when something like this happens. I raise my hat to ARITRY DAS, who had the courage to make the allegations public.

I would be careful though about transferring this onto the whole documentary photography scene – unfortunately this happens in every profession and surrounding. Our business is male dominated by photographers but female dominated by the decision makers – I would suggest, 70 to 80% of the photo editors and directors are women. Thus I would be surprised if this is more common here than in any other profession and I hope that this is a single case (which does not make it any better of course).

For the future, I hope that especially young women but also men photographers will be encouraged to complain instantly – you see the power of social media is incredible and no one, who is doing the same in the future, can feel safe anymore. Be aware, the only thing matters are your photos!!! There is no one that important in the business that he or she could prevent you from becoming a successful photographer. (by Dirk Claus)

Bildschirmfoto 2015-11-12 um 13.46.48