Did the 2018 trade war improve job opportunities for US workers?

Abstract

This paper uses data on the near universe of job adverts posted online in the US to study the impact of the 2018 trade war on US job opportunities. We develop measures of labor market exposure to three key channels of impact from the trade war: import protection for US producers, the higher cost of imported inputs for US producers, and exposure of US exporters to retaliatory tariffs. We find evidence that both tariffs on imported inputs and retaliatory tariffs led to a relative decline in online job postings in affected commuting zones. The effects of imported input tariffs were stronger for lower skilled postings than for higher skill postings and for part-time than full-time jobs. By contrast, we do not find any evidence of positive impacts of import protection on job openings. We estimate that the tariffs led to a combined effect of 162,019 fewer job postings in 2018, or 0.6 percent of the US total.