Hollowing Out

The best part of Halloween is the candy. The second best part of Halloween is the costumes. But the third best part of Halloween is carving jack-o-lanterns out of pumpkins, and that’s what we’re here to talk about today. Sort of. In a way.

Anyway, when we carve jack-o-lanterns, the first thing we have to do is cut open the top of the pumpkin, scoop out all of the innards, and deposit them elsewhere. In this step, we are doing what’s known as “hollowing out” the pumpkin.

In economic terms, an economy is “hollowed out” when its manufacturing jobs are, like pumpkin innards, scooped out and deposited in another country. A lot of developed nations have seen this happen within their own borders: as labor and production costs go up, manufacturing businesses can no longer bear the financial strain, so they close up shop and go somewhere cheaper, like Mexico, India, or Cambodia.

This can cause a lot of turmoil and uncertainty for the pumpkin—er, country—as it struggles to replace those jobs and employ the people who lost them.

Some economists argue that this isn’t necessarily always a bad thing, though. Hollowing out manufacturing jobs makes room for new jobs in new sectors, just as hollowing out a pumpkin makes room for our beautiful jack-o-lantern designs to shine.