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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Trade Deals Cost Good Jobs In Every State |
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by Economic Policy Institute
(No verified email address) |
27 Oct 2001
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NAFTA & WTO Spark State Losses as High as 5.8 Percent of Total Labor Force
139,000+ Jobs Lost In Illinois Under Previous NAFTA and WTO Agreements
US Rep. Tim Johnson OKs Even Greater Future Job Loss As Supporter of "Free Trade" |
WASHINGTON - October 25 - Since 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization came into being, more than 3 million jobs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia have fallen victim to U.S. trade policies as net job losses accelerated sharply. This is the major finding of an analysis released today by the Economic Policy Institute of recently released Census Bureau data.
EPI's study, "Fast Track to Lost Jobs," shows that a long-term trend of net job losses in trade-sensitive industries accelerated after NAFTA and WTO. This troubling trend, which grew largely undetected just under the surface of the recent economic boom, spells trouble ahead as the downturn deepens, say EPI experts.
"NAFTA and WTO have been equal opportunity destroyers, hitting every state without exception," said Robert Scott, the senior EPI economist who analyzed the job loss data. "During the boom, the loss of good manufacturing and other trade-related jobs was masked by rapid growth elsewhere, primarily in the volatile high tech and lower-wage service sectors. Now that we're in a slowdown and the rest of the economy is no longer generating enough jobs to take up the slack, these trade-induced job losses will magnify the downward pressure."
The job losses revealed in "Fast Track to Lost Jobs" have been studiously ignored, even denied, by fast track supporters inside and outside the Bush administration, who have reported only on the impact of increasing exports and while ignoring the job-destroying impact of more rapidly increasing imports.
"For the U.S. economy, these trade deficit-induced job losses are the 600-pound gorilla in the corner," said Scott. "Fast track supporters have ignored him because he's inconvenient -- but to keep doing so just makes him a greater risk."
Among the details reported by EPI are the following:
-- Nationwide, net job losses from U.S. international trade deficits totaled 3,044,241 from 1994 to 2000
-- equal to 2.3 percent of the nation's total workforce.
-- Job losses have shot up six times faster since NAFTA and WTO than during the five years immediately before they went into effect.
-- Every state and the District of Columbia lost jobs equaling at least 1.2 percent of their workforce because of U.S. trade policies under NAFTA and the WTO.
-- Ten states lost more than 100,000 jobs: California (310,000), Texas (228,000), New York (179,000), Michigan (152,000), Pennsylvania (142,000), Illinois (140,000), Ohio (135,000), North Carolina (133,000), Indiana (103,000), and Florida (100,000).
-- The 10 states suffering the highest rates of job losses are Rhode Island (5.8 percent), North Carolina (3.7 percent), Maine (3.6 percent), Tennessee (3.6 percent), Indiana (3.4 percent), Mississippi (3.3 percent), Michigan (3.2 percent), Alabama (3.1 percent), Arkansas (3.1 percent), and South Carolina (3.0 percent). (For full list, see report, Table 2B.)
-- Nearly two out of every three jobs lost were in manufacturing. (1.97 million out of 3.04 million).
-- In some manufacturing sub-sectors, job losses rose at extraordinary rates: 497.2 percent in transportation equipment; 448.6 percent in communications equipment; 363.8 percent in paper and allied products; 308.7 percent in petroleum refining and related products; and 207.5 percent in fabricated metal products (excluding machinery and transportation equipment).
-- Outside manufacturing, the sectors that experienced the most rapid acceleration of job losses were: financial, insurance and real estate (201.6 percent); communications (195.6 percent); construction (188.8 percent); and transportation (180.9 percent).
In tracking job losses that are due to U.S. trade policies under NAFTA and the WTO, EPI takes into account both actual job losses and potential jobs, or job opportunities, lost as a result of increasing U.S. trade deficits. The lost opportunities are positions that would have been created if the trade deficit had not accelerated since 1994.
A State-by-State Report, including detailed state-by-state and industry-by-industry breakdowns of job losses, is posted to the EPI Web site in PDF format at the link at the bottom of this article.
The password for accessing is: wages.
The Economic Policy Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan economic think tank founded in 1986. The Institute is located on the Web at http://www.epinet.org.
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See also:
http://www.epinet.org/press/011023b.pdf
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