(Extract from Employment, Wages, and Foreign Trade)

A STUDY SUBMITTED BY THE Department of Labor to THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON FOREIGN TRADE POLICY OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS IN SEPTEMBER 1957 1

INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND DOMESTIC EMPLOYMENT

The most recent analysis of the effects of United States foreign trade upon domestic employment was made by the Department of Labor for the Commission on Foreign Economic Policy (the Randall Commission) and was published in the staff papers of that Commission. This study indicated that in 1952 approximately 44 million workers in the United States owed their jobs either to making goods for export, processing imported raw materials and semimanufactured goods, or transporting and distributing imported commodities. On the basis of the growth in foreign trade which has occurred since 1952, the [Labor] Department now estimates that in 1956, this number had increased to about 41⁄2 million workers: United States employment attributable to foreign trade in 1956

A comparison of the components of the 1956 estimate with that for 1952 indicates that there was an increase of over 360,000 workers in making manufactured goods for export and over 130,000 workers in handling and processing of imports. This total gain of almost half a million workers has been partially offset by a drop of 265,000 agricultural workers, leaving a net gain of approximately 225,000 jobs in the 4-year period. The decrease in agricultural employment reflects both the increase in productivity of farm labor and the shifts in the pattern of agricultural exports among individual commodities.

Senator KERR. In your statement you give us some specifics of percentage of the Nation's output in certain fields that have been exported.

Based on the information you have and the charts you have shown, what percentage of that is related directly or made possible in part or entirely by our foreign aid program?

Secretary WEEKS. The large chart, the exports of finished manufactures, the exports represented by the red line on the right, they have no Government participation in any way, shape, or manner. Now, in the separate industry charts, Mr. Blackwell, can you answer the question, are they also completely free from

Mr. BLACKWELL. No, sir; the separate industry charts contain the total exports in each case.

8 billion on this chart and on the block charts it is about 10 billion. Secretary WEEKS. But the difference in total would be between Mr. BLACKWELL. Ten and a half billion.

Secretary WEEKS. So that you might-8 billion is finished manufactures-hold that up for a minute-is without Government participation, and last year on the block chart it shows sales. Put your

block chart up there.

Senator KERR. Put it back up there.

Committee on Foreign Trade Policy of the House Committee on Ways and Means, p. 761 (1957). 1 Published in the Compendium of Papers on United States Foreign Trade Policy for the use of the Subruary 1954, pp. 373, 374. As originally published, the estimate was 4.4 million workers, but the estimate of 1 Staff papers of the Commission on Foreign Economic Policy, U. 8. Government Printing Office, Feb

agricultural workers was later revised.