Foreign Ownership and Labor Demand by Skill in the Tunisian Manufacturing Industry: A Firm-Level Investigation

Abstract This paper aims to examine the impact of foreign ownership on the employment of different skill groups in Tunisian manufacturing industries. The empirical investigation is based on a rich and unique firm-level dataset covering the period 1997–2007. The estimation of a dynamic labor demand function using the system GMM estimator brings out many interesting findings. First, results indicate that foreign ownership has a positive effect on total employment. Second, when decomposing employment according to skill level, we reveal that the foreign ownership of firms affects positively unskilled labor demand and negatively skilled labor demand. Furthermore, the effects are higher in small and medium-sized enterprises and firms belonging to low technology industries. Findings also suggest no significant differences between short- and long-run effects of foreign ownership on the employment of different skill groups. Finally, the main results of the research hold even when estimating the labor demand functions simultaneously using the three-stage least squares estimator. The policy implications are correspondingly derived.