The impact of service and goods offshoring on employment: Firm-level evidence
The impact of service and goods offshoring on employment: Firm-level evidence
Advances in communication technology have led to a remarkable increase in the tradability of services, resulting in a substantial increase in offshoring of services over the last two decades. Research investigating how this surge in service offshoring affects employment, has been largely hampered by the paucity of suitable microdata. This paper tries to fill this gap by using a newly constructed database of Belgian firms that combines individual transaction-level data on international trade in goods and services with annual financial accounts. This unusually rich dataset allows us to produce fresh evidence on the impact of goods and service offshoring on total employment and employment by educational levels for both manufacturing industries and the service sectors. Our results show that: (i) goods offshoring has a positive impact on employment growth among workers with both low and high levels of education in the manufacturing industry but this effect disappears when controlling for scale effects; and (ii) service offshoring has a negative impact on employment growth among highly educated workers in the service sectors. This novel evidence suggests that globalization may threaten job security of higher educated workers too.
1-57
Ornaghi, Carmine
33275e47-4642-4023-a195-39c91d0146b0
Van Beveren, Ilke
ad497094-424d-433d-bd5f-3183d962d761
Vanormelingen, Stijn
47bc18f5-195b-40b1-add7-74bf7c6b73a9
May 2017
Ornaghi, Carmine
33275e47-4642-4023-a195-39c91d0146b0
Van Beveren, Ilke
ad497094-424d-433d-bd5f-3183d962d761
Vanormelingen, Stijn
47bc18f5-195b-40b1-add7-74bf7c6b73a9
Ornaghi, Carmine, Van Beveren, Ilke and Vanormelingen, Stijn
(2017)
The impact of service and goods offshoring on employment: Firm-level evidence
(Working Paper Research, 319)
National Bank of Belgium
Record type:
Monograph
(Discussion Paper)
Abstract
Advances in communication technology have led to a remarkable increase in the tradability of services, resulting in a substantial increase in offshoring of services over the last two decades. Research investigating how this surge in service offshoring affects employment, has been largely hampered by the paucity of suitable microdata. This paper tries to fill this gap by using a newly constructed database of Belgian firms that combines individual transaction-level data on international trade in goods and services with annual financial accounts. This unusually rich dataset allows us to produce fresh evidence on the impact of goods and service offshoring on total employment and employment by educational levels for both manufacturing industries and the service sectors. Our results show that: (i) goods offshoring has a positive impact on employment growth among workers with both low and high levels of education in the manufacturing industry but this effect disappears when controlling for scale effects; and (ii) service offshoring has a negative impact on employment growth among highly educated workers in the service sectors. This novel evidence suggests that globalization may threaten job security of higher educated workers too.
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Published date: May 2017
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Local EPrints ID: 419323
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/419323
PURE UUID: cde41ed6-0061-49dc-a424-58d751c3fad4
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Date deposited: 10 Apr 2018 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:42
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Author:
Ilke Van Beveren
Author:
Stijn Vanormelingen
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