The Evolution of Tradable and Non Tradable Employment: Evidence from France

The objective of this paper is to investigate the evolution of employment in the tradable and non-tradable sectors in France over 1999-2015. We find that tradable employment makes up the minority of French employment and has decreased over this period, dropping from 27.5% to 23.6% of total employment. There has been significant restructuring within the sector: tradable services jobs now make up the majority of tradable jobs and have grown sharply, while employment has declined in the rest of the tradable sector (manufacturing, agricultural and mining industries). We also identify a large wage and labor productivity gap between tradable and non-tradable sectors. Finally, we examine the distribution of tradable jobs across French local labor markets, and how their development affects non-tradable employment locally. Using the empirical approach developed by Moretti (2010), we find that for every 100 tradable jobs created in a French employment area between 2008 and 2016, 80 additional non-tradable jobs were created within the same area. JEL Classification: F16, F66, O52, R15, R23