Study: U.S. To Lose Over 400,000 Jobs This Year

By Agence France-Presse The United States will lose more than 400,000 jobs this year to Mexico, China, India and other Asian nations as multinational corporations restructure operations and shift production overseas, a recent study showed. The number of jobs lost will be around double those three years ago, according to the new study by Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The study projected that nearly 100,000 jobs would move to China in 2004 based on extrapolating data collected between January and March this year. "These data suggest that in 2004 as many as 406,000 jobs will be shifted from the U.S. to other countries compared to 204,000 jobs in 2001," of which nearly a quarter will go to China, it said. The commission was set up to review the national security implications of trade and economic ties between the United States and China. The study said companies engaged in production shifts "tend to be large, publicly held, highly profitable and well established." The principal motive for production shifts to China was cost reduction rather than producing for the massive Chinese market. Jobs lost because of production shifts far exceeded that reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its report on mass layoffs due to overseas relocation, the commission said. It added that "trade adjustment assistance" to workers laid-off owing to overseas job relocation was poor, covering less than one-third of the cases where production shifts occur. Among other key findings was that production shifts out of the United States, particularly to Mexico, China, India, and other Asian countries, had seen a major increase in the last three years, the study said. Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2004