The globalization of the Australian textile, clothing, footwear and motor vehicle industries : results in line with other western market economies

Trade liberalization and reinforcing industry-specific assistance measures have been instrumental in globalizing the Australian textile, clothing, footwear (TCF) and motor vehicle industries by re-orienting production from the domestic to international market. As a result, output and has contracted in the former industry whilst expanding in the latter industry. These results are in line with TCF and motor vehicle production in other western market economies. This, in turn, indicates that labour intensive industries are likely to be contracting whilst capital intensive industries dominate production in these economies. This has important implication for manpower policies in that they need to be formulated to upgrade the skills of the labour force in order to facilitate the expanding production of capital intensive goods, thereby promote employment growth in the long run.