>According to the Economic Policy Institute:-
>http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_12102003
>
>NAFTA-related job losses have piled up since 1993
>Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in
>1993, the rise in the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico
>through 2002 caused the displacement of production that supported
>879,280 U.S. jobs. NAFTA is a free trade and investment agreement
>that provided investors with a unique set of guarantees designed to
>stimulate foreign direct investment in Mexico and Canada. It has
>facilitated the movement of factories from the United States to
>Canada and Mexico. Most of these jobs were high-wage positions in
>manufacturing industries.
Displacement of jobs *to* Canada? Really? I thought the Canadians were always complaining about CUSTA/NAFTA job lossses to the U.S.
I've seen these EPI counts over the years, and I'm skeptical. They essentially divide the trade deficit by average annual earnings and assume the result is an estimate of the numbers of jobs lost. But in a growing economy, which we had from 1993 through 2001, jobs are gained and lost all the time, with the number gained generally exceeding the number lost. (For a measure of gross job gains and losses, see the BLS's newish series at <http://www.bls.gov/bdm/home.htm>.) If the neoclassicals are even partially right that trade increases growth overall, then the EPI method makes no allowance for that. Between 1993 and 2002, the U.S. economy added nearly 20 million jobs and the average real hourly wage rose by 9%. I don't know how you can come up with the spuriously precise estimate of 879,280 (not 879,270?) jobs lost to NAFTA over the same period.
Like I said, the case is much firmer to say that NAFTA's effects on Mexico were bad. It encouraged low-wage, low-skill assembly jobs with little local sourcing or skills transfer - jobs that are now being shifted to China - and helped accelerate losses in traditional peasant agriculture. But I've never known EPI or the U.S. labor movement to exhibit much concern for workers outside the U.S.
Doug