RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
World Trade Report 2017
Trade, technology and jobs
The 2017 World Trade Report examines how technology and trade affect employment and wages. It analyses the challenges for workers and firms in adjusting to changes in labour markets, and how governments can facilitate such adjustment to ensure that trade and technology are inclusive.
The Report looks, in particular, at the part played by technology and trade in the shift of employment from manufacturing to services, in the decreasing proportion of middle-skilled jobs, in the growing value placed on skills within the jobs market and in the increasing participation of women in the workforce.
The Report finds that labour markets have evolved in many different ways across countries, suggesting that country-specific factors play a pivotal role. It also finds that although technological advances and trade have yielded important benefits for economies overall, certain types of workers and/or regions may sometimes be adversely affected. Although interrelated, technology more than trade appears to be responsible for the decreasing share of manufacturing jobs and for the declining number of middle-skill jobs relative to low- and high-skill jobs.
The publication concludes that helping workers adjust to changes in the labour market and ensuring that benefits are spread more widely can increase the positive impact of open trade and technological progress.
Download pdf
- Complete report (190 pages; 4 MB)
- Cover, contents, acknowledgements, disclaimer, DG Foreword and Executive Summary (13 pages; 258 KB)
- A. Introduction (8 pages; 176 KB)
- B. Labour market outcomes: trends and analytical framework (54 pages; 1.3 MB)
- C. Impact of technology on labour market outcomes (30 pages; 698 KB)
- D. Impact of trade on labour market outcomes (28 pages; 431 KB)
- E. Policy responses to labour market adjustment and distributional changes (23 pages; 375 KB)
- F. Conclusions (1 page; 61 KB)
- Bibliography, Technical notes, Abbreviations and symbols, List of figures, tables and boxes, WTO members, Previous World Trade Reports, back cover (33 pages; 1 MB)
Download App
The World Trade Report 2017 is now available as an app.
The app includes the full text of the Report plus the underlying data for all charts and tables in the Report. It also contains a video and photos of the launch event.
The app can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play for viewing on your tablet or mobile phone.
Download for iPad
Download for Android