Assessing employment benefits from trade: US-Mexico trade under NAFTA

Abstract

Recent tendencies in the operation of Global Value Chains (GVC) have indicated an increasingly asymmetric distribution of benefits in terms of the participating countries and different layers of workers. This paper employs the World Input–Output Database to calculate the working hours and wages embodied in manufacturing exports between the US and Mexico, by country of origin and skill level, from 1995 to 2008. In purchasing power, the increase in total wages paid in the US, generated by the bilateral trade, was significantly higher than that of wages paid in Mexico, even though the additional number of hours worked in Mexico was seven times higher. For the US, the results ratify the loss of jobs after 2001, but with an upgrade of the skill structure. We conclude that the trend towards replacement of low-skilled labour by more capital-intensive systems occurs within GVC to the detriment of the incomes of low-skilled workers.