Overview
This series asks whether expanding services trade makes work more precarious. The evidence links greater exposure to shorter current job duration, but not to a broad detected rise in employment exits, broad sector switching, or temporary-contract use. It traces how exports, imports, and imported inputs reach sectors, occupations, regions, and local non-tradable jobs, then examines how offshoring affects separate dimensions of job quality. The pattern is consistent with greater labour-market dynamism and possibly better-match job-to-job movement, but motives, hidden unemployment, wages, access, and individual welfare are not established. Effects vary by worker composition, place, task, destination, and study design.
Learning outcomes
- Shorter current job duration signals greater labour-market dynamism, not proof of rising precarity.
- The study detects no broad rise in employment exits, broad sector switching, or temporary-contract use alongside shorter tenure.
- Services trade reaches workers through sectors, occupations, regions, and local demand, so composition and access shape who benefits.
- Offshoring can improve physical conditions or prospects while worsening social conditions in some samples and changing other quality dimensions by destination.
- Whether trade makes work precarious depends on the outcome and study design; observed associations do not establish every worker’s experience.
Keywords
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PlansFAQ
Does shorter job tenure prove that services trade makes work more precarious?
No, shorter job tenure does not prove that services trade makes work more precarious. It is associated with greater exposure, while the analysis finds no broad detected rise in employment exits, broad sector switching, or temporary-contract use; hidden spells and job quality remain unobserved.
How can services trade affect workers who do not work for exporters?
Services trade can reach them through imported inputs, occupation and regional exposure, and local demand created by tradable-services employment. In Brazil, France, and the United States, each new tradable-services job is associated with about 0.9, 0.6, and 1.6 additional non-tradable-services jobs, respectively; these are country-specific estimates, not a universal conversion rate.
Are the services-trade tenure findings causal?
No, the services-trade tenure findings are reported as associations rather than worker-level causal effects. The OECD analysis uses extensive fixed effects but no further causal-inference design, and it does not observe complete employment spells, firm-level trade, wages, or reasons for moving.
Does offshoring improve or worsen job quality?
Offshoring can do both, depending on the job-quality dimension and destination examined. Total-offshoring estimates indicate better physical environments and prospects overall, while old EU member states also show a marginally significant deterioration in social environment; destination results are reduced-form correlations.