Trade and Manufacturing Jobs in Germany

Wolfgang Dauth, Sebastian Findeisen and Jens Suedekum

No 10469, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The German economy exhibits rising service and declining manufacturing employment. But this decline is much sharper in import-competing than in export-oriented branches. We first document the individual-level job transitions behind those trends. They are not driven by manufacturing workers who smoothly switch to services. The observed shifts are entirely due to young entrants and returnees from non-employment. We then investigate if rising trade with China and Eastern Europe causally affected those labor flows. Exploiting variation across industries and regions, we find that globalization did not speed up the manufacturing decline in Germany. It even retained those jobs in the economy.

Keywords: manufacturing; structural transformation; trade; labor markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F16 J21 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2017-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (57)

Published - published in: American Economic Review, 2017, 107 (5), 337-342

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Journal Article: Trade and Manufacturing Jobs in Germany (2017)
Working Paper: Trade and Manufacturing Jobs in Germany (2017)
Working Paper: Trade and manufacturing jobs in Germany (2017)
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