Many of those once employed as semi-skilled workers are now fighting for low-wage jobs.
The benefits of importing semi-skilled needleworkers are less so, particularly since they are not cheap.
Germany has around 1.5m unfilled job vacancies, some 40% of them for unskilled or semi-skilled workers.
Given South Africa's high unemployment, unskilled workers are easy to replace, but skilled and semi-skilled workers are not.
ECONOMIST: South African firms are struggling to cope as AIDS spreads
There are many semi-skilled workers employed there now on much better wages than they would earn as domestic helpers.
These youngsters face the loss of jobs for skilled and semi-skilled industrial workers and an increase in temporary, service-sector jobs.
He also said Malaysia planned to increase the number of technical and vocational schools to widen the pool of skilled and semi-skilled workers.
The government employs a wide variety of skilled and semi-skilled workers.
Among these young men - from families of skilled or semi-skilled workers - more than two-thirds never expect to own their own home, says a survey.
The union claims the move would lead to skilled workers, including electricians, pipe-fitters and plumbers, being forced to work on semi-skilled grades and losing up to a third of their pay.
The success of management resulted in America emerging as the premier industrial power, not principally because of a large educated workforce who magically self-organized so as to become highly productive, but rather because large US corporations discovered how to use large numbers of even semi-skilled people more productively.
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