A new report, “Exports to Jobs: Boosting the Gains from Trade in South Asia”, was presented in New Delhi, shows that increasing exports would boost average wages. The biggest beneficiaries of the wage gains would be the high-skilled, urban, more experienced, and mainly male workers. For low-skilled workers, the shift would result in an increase in formal jobs.
The report, jointly produced by the World Bank and the International Labour Organisation, breaks new ground in examining the impact of exports on local labor markets in South Asia. It uses an innovative approach, analysing the effect on local employment and wages of changes in exports by combining disaggregated data from household-level or worker-level surveys with trade data from India and Sri Lanka. The approach builds on a new wave of research looking at how globalisation might contribute to local jobs and wages, but, unlike previous studies, it focuses on exports.
The report provides options on how to expand and widely share the benefits of higher exports. Improving workers’ skills, getting women and youth into more jobs, and addressing distortions that make labor mobility costly are some of the recommended policy actions.
