Storm Clouds on the Horizon for U.S. Pay Levels?

Ryan Johnson's WorldatWork blog had a post earlier this week about Geoff Colvin's article Are American's Too Lazy? in Fortune magazine.  As Ryan points out, Colvin's assertion that Americans are selling the world's most expensive labor could have serious implications for future compensation levels here in the U.S.

From the article:

Every day more of us work in a global labor market, competing for jobs with people around the world.  One thing markets do really well is fix disequilibrium; when anything tradable sells for different prices in different places, those differences soon disappear.

Americans and others in developed economies are selling the world's most expensive labor.  In a global market, some of those prices - our pay - will have to stop rising and maybe even come down, while pay in China, India, and elsewhere goes up.

Economists see it happening already, attributing some of the surprising flatness in Americans' real total compensation of the past few years to the presence of millions of global workers competing for jobs.

Colvin juxtapositions this concern with the new research from the U.N.'s International Labor Organization which examines working hours around the world and concludes that we are dropping to the bottom of the heap based on how hard we are working.  (See more on this report at the HR Capitalist.)  His point:  "Competing in a global labor market may require us to put in more hours just to stay in the game."  Or to prevent erosion in our pay levels and standards of living.

An ominous prediction, but I think Colvin's point has merit and will be something for compensation and HR professionals alike - here in the U.S. - to be alert to.