Analysis of Trade and Employment in Manufacturing Industry Using Panel Data Method

The increasing importance of unemployment in the world economies has led to investigation of impact of foreign trade on employment. In this respect there are several studies concerning employment impact of foreign trade. In this study, employment impact of foreign trade is estimated with panel data analysis using annual data of 22 manufacturing industries of Turkish economy according to two digit level of NACE Rev. 1.1 classification for the period of 2003-2008. Since the dataset has both cross-sectional and time series elements, fixed effects estimators and random effects estimators were used for the estimation of models. Results of this study show that while production has positive and wages have negative and significant impact on employment, foreign trade has no significant impact on employment for the period of analyzed. This implies that impact of wages and production on employment consistent with economic theory and the measures of foreign trade policies to improve employment are insufficient in the period of analyzed.