Production moves abroad? About offshoring and the labour market

Sascha O. Becker Karolina Ekholm Katariina Nilsson Hakkala

This research report studies the question of how globalization affects the Swedish labour market. How extensive has the outflow of jobs from Sweden been? What jobs and regions have been affected? The report presents the intensive research in the last few years and discusses what conclusions that can be drawn from the results of the studies.

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HOW DO SWEDISH COMPANIES ACT? The authors study the outflow of the companies’ Swedish business, both to low-wage and high-wage countries. The background is that the very major part of Swedish imports is from other high-wage countries and not from low-wage countries. Moreover, the major part of the business that Swedish multinational companies have chosen to pursue abroad is located in other high-wage countries and not in low-wage countries.

WHICH JOBS ARE THEN MOVING OUT? An important question in the report is whether offshoring mainly leads to a decrease in the demand for labour with relatively low skills and low wages or whether it mainly leads to a decrease in the demand for labour with relatively high skills and high wages. Finally, the report discusses how economic policy might affect the degree of offshoring.

This report concludes the research programme SNS Labour Market and will thus be the final report in the sub area The Effect of Globalization on the Swedish Labour Market.

Researchers and Scientific Directors
The project is chaired by the Deputy Director of the Riksbank, Professor KAROLINA EKHOLM and Associate Professor KATARIINA NILSSON HAKKALA. Professor Sascha O. Becker is also involved in the project.

The analyses and conclusions in the report are the authors’ own. For KAROLINA EKHOLM, this means that Sveriges riksbank is not involved in the report and its contents in any way, Karolina has participated in the work in her capacity as a researcher.