Sectoral Shifts in the North American Economies
Quite frankly, with unemployment rates at or near 60-year lows in the US and Canada, it is hard for me to get worked up about the transfer of manufacturing output from North America to the Asian economies. It looks to me as if we are amazingly flexible and resilient, for the most part, as our economies adapt to the changes in trade and to the reflections of different input prices in different economies. From Cafe Hayek,
From Robert Samuelson's column in [the] Washington Post:More evidence of the sectoral shift comes from Steve Poloz:
From 1998 to 2007, total non-farm payroll employment [in the U.S.] rose 12 million, and unemployment averaged only 4.9 percent -- despite the 4 million lost factory jobs. In that period, U.S. manufacturing output rose 22 percent.
Autos and parts remain the second-largest export sector for Canada, at just over $70 billion in 2007. Energy exports have leapt into first place, generating revenues of nearly $92 billion in 2007. Close behind autos is exports of services – tourism, financial services, engineering and professional services, and so on – at nearly $68 billion.
Category: Economics, International Trade Posted on
Friday, April 18, 2008 at 8:46am
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In Europe, where youth and immigrant minorities suffer from large chronic unemployment (> 1 year), the picture looks different.
Of course, the sensible thing is to get rid of the causes of chronic unemployment, but if that's not possible, there might be (political) problems from trade-induced restructuring.
As far as I understand, N. America is doing far better than Europe in terms of matching people with jobs after shocks like these...
What I'm trying to say is that I don't particularly care about the rate of unemployment as such, as long as people who are fired or quit can find *something* over a few weeks, and not months or quarters, as in Europe.