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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.
National Report Available Under Embargo On The Web
To access an embargoed copy of "Fast Track to Lost Jobs" go
to: http://www.epinet.org/press/011023a.pdf and enter the password:
wages.
Follow-up State-by-State Report to be Online Soon
By 5 p.m. (Eastern) on Thursday, Oct. 25, a follow-up report,
including detailed state-by-state and industry-by-industry
breakdowns of job losses, will be posted to the EPI Web site. That
address will be: http://www.epinet.org/press/011023b.pdf and the
password for accessing it is the same: 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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