"Putting them in one area created a community and a pool of labor".
Last month, Mr. Ko Lin received a Japanese delegation scouting for business opportunities, and he was told that one of its members' main concerns was the local pool of labor.
Second, Congress must act to increase the size of the available pool of labor, by enacting immigration legislation aimed at bringing health care workers into the country.
In the near term, they are much like the police and firefighters who also crowd the rubble, a pool of labor for the vast rescue and security effort.
Likewise, he enlisted the language of neoclassical economics to praise China's use of its "comparative advantage," in pursuing low-cost manufacturing, which makes use of the country's huge pool of labor.
The one big infrastructure development in the area — a quixotic project with Chinese participation to build a high-speed rail line through the sparsely populated plains — doesn't generate enough jobs to soak up the excess pool of labor.
"All workers will suffer because employers will have available a ready pool of labor they can exploit to drive down wages, benefits, health and safety protections and other workplace standards," Mr. Sweeney said.
Worldwide, transit tends to be part of a larger policy-driven budget discussion in which city and suburban officials jointly execute long-term visions for a region, knowing that mass transit provides pools of labor and incentives for new businesses, to the benefit of all.
While the sheer scale of Africa's epidemic has tended to overshadow the problem here, health experts and political leaders warn of the potential for devastation in a region of small, image-conscious countries that depend on a limited pool of labor and resources, as well as tourism.
