Document Type
Article
Department/Program
Economics
Journal Title
IZA Journal of Labor & Development
Pub Date
2-2016
Volume
5
Issue
3
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This paper examines industry-level responses of manufacturing employment in the context of globalization using a large sample of developed, developing, and transition economies. We find that developing countries need atypically high rates of value-added growth (about 10 %) to increase manufacturing employment appreciably (about 4 %). The employment benefits of export orientation are also modest even in “comparative advantage” industries of developing countries. However, diversifying the export basket contributes significantly to employment growth, particularly in the medium- and high-technology industries. Import competition does not undermine employment growth in low-technology industries of developing countries while it displaces jobs in the same industries in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and transition economies. For developing countries, import-induced job losses are higher in the more capital-intensive medium-technology industries. Jobs in high-technology industries are less sensitive to imports with positive relationships observed in the OECD. Investment also complements job creation in low-technology industries of developing countries that have yet to industrialize.
Recommended Citation
Shiferaw, Admasu and Hailu, Degol, Job Creation and Trade in Manufactures: Industry-Level Analysis Across Countries (2016). IZA Journal of Labor & Development, 5(3).
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40175-016-0052-z
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40175-016-0052-z
