The Era of Ultracheap Stuff Is Under Threat

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By Jon Emont

(The Wall Street Journal) — The workplace features floor-to-ceiling windows and a cafe serving matcha tea, as well as free yoga and dance classes. Every month, workers gather at team-building sessions to drink beer, drive go-karts and go bowling.

This isn’t Google. It’s a garment factory in Vietnam.

Asia, the world’s factory floor and the source of much of the stuff Americans buy, is run-ning into a big problem: Its young people, by and large, don’t want to work in factories.

That’s why the garment factory is trying to make its manufacturing floor more enticing, and why alarm bells are ringing at Western companies that rely on the region’s inexpen-sive labor to churn out affordable consumer goods.

The twilight of ultracheap Asian factory labor is emerging as the latest test of the global-ized manufacturing model, which over the past three decades has delivered a vast array of inexpensively produced goods to consumers around the world. Americans accustomed to bargain-rate fashion and flat-screen TVs might soon be reckoning with higher prices.