The Effect of International Trade on Labor Demand in ASEAN5

This paper assesses the effects of ASEAN5's international trade on their level of employment. By applying the labor demand model of Greenaway et al. (1999), we classified ASEAN5's international trade into two cases: (1) intra-ASEAN5 trade and (2) trade with the world market. Our estimated results show that an increase in intra-ASEAN5 imports reduces their level of employment, but that intra-ASEAN5 exports have no effect on employment. In the case of world market trade, ASEAN5's world imports (exports) have a positive (negative) effect on employment depending on the sort of trade.