Impact of Trade on Employment Generation in Manufacturing in India

Analysing the impact of trade on manufacturing employment in India, it is found that exports had a favourable effect on industrial employment, but the positive effect of export increase was offset by the negative effect of increases in imports. The net effect was marginal. The failure of trade to raise industrial employment is traced primarily to the changing product composition of trade and the changing direction of trade. Petroleum products have emerged as a major item of Indias exports whereas the traditional labour-intensive products have lost their share. The analysis reveals an adverse effect of changing factor prices on manufacturing employment. One interesting finding of the study is that after a long period of jobless growth, the corporate sector organized manufacturing has achieved in the last four years (2004-05 through 2007-08) a high rate of growth in employment, about 7 per cent per annum on average.