Report: N.Y. Jobs Lost To China

America's trade deficit with China is hitting close to home, with New York State losing 127,000 jobs to China between 2001 and 2007, a study released today by the Economic Policy Institute and the Alliance for American Manufacturing found.

Since the Chinese entrance into the World Trade Organization in 2001, 2.3 million American jobs have been lost to China, including 366,000 in 2007 alone, the report said. Of those, 21,000, or nearly 6%, come from New York. The American trade gap with China, the largest portion of America's national trade deficit, accounts for $263 billion.

Jobs lost range from blue-collar assembly jobs to high-tech executive positions, and data from the study show that replacement jobs, often lower paying retail or service positions, earn an annual average of $8,146 less for each worker, or $19.4 billion nationwide.

"Workers are being pushed out of good jobs in manufacturing," a senior international economist at the Economic Policy Institute, Robert Scott, said.

New York has lost the third most American jobs to China, with only California and Texas losing more. Moreover, manufacturing is the third largest contributor to New York State's economy, accounting for $61 billion of its gross state product, according to the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

"Our flawed trade relationship with China is destroying good jobs in New York," the executive director of the alliance, Scott Paul, said.

In addition to manufacturing, the technology sector has been affected by China, the report found. More than a quarter of last year's $68 billion trade deficit was from computers and advanced technology products, nearly six times the deficit in that sector in 2002, the study showed. By contrast, America has a $15 million trade surplus with the rest of the world in advanced technology products.

"All manufacturing is facing a critical challenge, as we know, but what may surprise people is how hard workers in advanced technology are being affected," Mr. Paul said. "As China diversifies its export base — and it's already expanding its electronic products, aircraft, auto parts, and machinery — more American products will be unfairly disadvantaged."

The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, focuses on lower- and middle-income Americans, and has a number of labor union leaders on its board of directors, including the president of the United Auto Workers Union, Ronald Gettelfinger, and the president of UNITE HERE and vice president of the AFL-CIO, Bruce Raynor. The report was conducted in conjunction with the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a partnership of American manufacturers and the United Steelworkers of America.