EU EXPORTS TO THE WORLD: OVERVIEW OF EFFECTS ON EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME

José Rueda-Cantuche and Nuno Sousa ()
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Nuno Sousa: DG Trade

No 2016-1, DG TRADE Chief Economist Notes from Directorate General for Trade, European Commission

Abstract: KEY FINDINGS • As trade agreements create the conditions for an increase in EU exports they also foster more and better job opportunities for European citizens. From 1995 to 2011 the number of jobs in the EU that were supported by exports of goods and services to the rest of the world increased by 67% to reach around 31 million. These represented 1 in 7 jobs across the 27 EU Member States (up from 1 in 11 jobs in 1995). They tended to be high-skilled and were on average better paid. • In order to remain competitive EU exporters increasingly rely also on foreign inputs. This means that the employment they support progressively spans beyond the EU's borders. In 2011 about 19 million jobs outside the EU depended on EU exports. This means that in 2011 a total of 50 million people around the world had jobs thanks to the EU exporting industries. • Exports are important for employment in all Member States. In 2011 only in Greece (7%), Portugal (8%) and Spain (9%) did the EU exports to the rest of the world support less than 10% of total employment. In Luxembourg they supported a third of all jobs; in Ireland 25%. • Increasingly the jobs supported by EU exports are related to services. Services exports are growing fast but that is not the whole story. The importance of services sectors as suppliers of inputs to the production of the goods for export (“mode 5 services” exports) also stands out from the data. In 2011, 40% of the employment supported by the exports of the primary and manufacturing sectors was in fact in services. • The sales of goods and services to the US market were responsible for 15% of the EU employment supported by EU exports; other key markets to sustaining export-related jobs in the EU were China (10%), Russia (6%) and Turkey (4%).

Keywords: EU exports; income; employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2016-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-int, nep-pke and nep-sbm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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