Employees of Mondelez International (NASDAQ: MDLZ) today protested against the company’s decision to lay off 1,200 workers from its Nabisco plant in Chicago as the company completed a $130 million plant in Salinas, Mexico. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have both called for a boycott of Oreo cookies, Nabisco’s most popular product, with Clinton advocating for a reimbursement of tax breaks if companies outsource jobs overseas.
The outsourcing of jobs is a reflection of the short-termism of Wall Street. Wall Street rewards companies that post profits quarter after quarter, but penalizes companies that invest in workers and employee welfare. Employee welfare always means higher operating costs in the short-term, but steady productivity over the long-term. For as long as Wall Street has a short-term view of a company’s value, the wave of outsourcing jobs will, unfortunately, continue.
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