Some jobs can be traced to export industries: thus, reduce trade and these jobs are at risk–at least their current form. The International Labour Organization offers an estimate of how much employment in countries around the world is linked to their exports to the United States (World Employment and Social Outlook: May 2025 Update).
As of 2023, an estimated 84 million workers have jobs linked directly or indirectly through supply chains to final demand from the United States in the 71 countries with available data (see Table 1). That amounts to 4.3 per cent of total employment in these countries. Most of those workers – 56 million – are in Asia and the Pacific, though the share of total employment is highest in Canada and Mexico, at 17.1 per cent. While some of those workers are already at risk of being affected by higher tariffs, a cloud of uncertainty is affecting a wider swath of workers. The final employment impact will depend on the evolution of US demand for imports, trade diversion effects and employment shifts into other sectors. The latter effect could cause a deterioration in employment quality, since trade-related sectors tend to have higher average job quality – measured by indicators such as lower informality – than many non-trade-related alternatives.
Here’s the key table:
There’s not much surprise in these numbers, although their magnitude is worth considering. The US higher-tariff policies are putting 4.3% of jobs in the rest of the world at some degree of risk–17.1% of all jobs in Canada and Mexico. Concern over these jobs is part of what makes other countries willing to negotiate with the US tariffs.
Is 4% of jobs “a lot”? For perspective, the US unemployment range has been roughly 4% for the last year or so. If some policy step posed a risk of doubling that rate, the US would certainly view it as “a lot” of jobs.
On the other side of the scale, US jobs are linked to US exports, as well. Estimates from the US International Trade Commission for 2022 suggest that 10.2 million US jobs are linked to US exports. The US economy had about 158 million total jobs in 2022, so 10.2 million of those jobs linked to exports works out to 6.4% of the total. If US exports were to decline, those jobs would be at risk.
I’ll add two thoughts here:
These estimates of how many jobs are linked to exports are relatively solid. After all, we can measure trade flows, and we can measure how many workers are involved in a given industry. Yes, there’s some additional calculation involved if, say, an industry exports 30% of its output. But the numbers are plausible if imperfect estimates.
In addition, imports are tied to jobs as well. For example, US workers have jobs at retail stores that have imported products on their shelves, US manufactures often use imported products (like aluminum or steel) or machinery, the US-based transportation industry ships imported products, and so on. The estimates of how many US jobs are involved with imports–not in competition with imports, but as part of what their employer provides–are much more vague. With jobs tied to both imports and exports, it’s easy to wave one’s hands and say that workers whose jobs are linked to international trade can just shift to jobs that aren’t linked to international trade. But shifts that potentially involve millions of workers, both in the US and around the world, will not be a seamless, non-disruptive, and cost-free process.
