The report is only 27 pages long, so if you have a change, please read through it.  Otherwise, here’s the main thrust, from the Executive Summary:

This report examines the empirical evidence of the impact of free trade agreements on jobs. Using studies and statistics collated here for the first time, the report shows how past trade liberalisations caused huge job losses in both Africa and Latin America, the two continents that bore the brunt of early experiments in structural adjustment and other free trade policies. Findings from those experiments reveal a pattern of deindustrialisation, job losses and falling wages whose impact continues to be felt to this day, condemning whole generations to unemployment and poverty and stifling hopes for sustainable development.

In sub-Saharan Africa, trade liberalisation led to job losses across a wide range of countries, including Kenya, Malawi, Côte d’Ivoire, Zimbabwe and Morocco. Zambia saw unemployment double as the formal sector lost tens of thousands of jobs. Nor were these short-term losses: even today the vast majority of Zambian workers are forced to eke out a living in the informal economy, and 95% do not earn enough to lift themselves and their families above the $2 a day poverty threshold. Industrial employment in Ghana fell by 17% during the first eight years of trade liberalisation reforms, and by 22% for women.

Latin America experienced a similar loss of industrial and manufacturing jobs as a result of trade liberalisation. Unemployment in Latin America increased from 7.6 million to 18.1 million over the 1990s, almost entirely through the loss of existing jobs. Trade liberalisation in Brazil alone reduced net employment by 2.7 million jobs between 1990 and 1997. In Mexico, the trade liberalisations which saw the rise of the maquila sector brought huge job losses in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, as well as a catastrophic decline in the value of wages. In real terms, the minimum wage dropped to just one fifth of its 1976 value by 2000.

Despite this evidence of the impact of previous trade liberalisations, some politicians are still calling for the swift conclusion of the Doha round of negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Yet the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has calculated that millions of jobs are at risk in developing countries as a result of the new trade liberalisation which the Doha round would require. Even the EU’s own assessment predicts that a conclusion to the Doha round along the lines currently proposed will cause significant job losses across the agricultural, industrial and service sectors of the developing world.

. . .

Free trade is no answer to the current economic crisis. At a time when unemployment levels are already rising sharply as a result of the global recession, further trade liberalisation will only exacerbate the threat to jobs. The free market approach undermines the possibility of decent work and of achieving sustainable development. War on Want believes that states must retain the policy space and levers of control in order to govern markets, manage international trade and provide decent work for all.

Download the full Trading Away Our Jobs report here.

The report’s major finding is that despite record economic growth in many of the world’s countries, the wealth which is being created is failing to “trickle down” to the majority of the population, leading to widening gaps between the rich and poor.

For example, the report points out that in most countries where there is available data, wages as a share of national income has been declining:

In 51 out of 73 countries for which data are available, the share of wages in total income declined over the past two decades. The largest decline in the share of wages in GDP took place in Latin America and the Caribbean (-13 points), followed by Asia and the Pacific (-10 points) and the Advanced Economies (-9 points).

The story is the same in Australia, where since 1975 (the end of the Whitlam Government) corporations have been taking a bigger and bigger share of GDP at the expense of wages:

Australia: Corporate Profits vs Wages as a share of GDP

The report also finds that in 70% of all countries, the income gap between the top and bottom 10 per cent of wage earners increased between 1990 and 2005.  The most staggering statistic is that

in the United States in 2007, the chief executive officers (CEOs) of the 15 largest companies earned 500 times more than the average worker. This is up from 360 times more in 2003.

Five hundred times more!

So what’s responsible for this growth in inequality?  While the report identifies a number of factors, it singles out financial globalisation as a particularly powerful cause:

Financial globalization has also led to a depression of the share of wages in GDP, reinforcing the downward trend recorded in most countries, . . . over and above any trend decline in the wage share that may have resulted from sectoral shifts, rising labour demand elasticities from trade openness or changes in labour market regulations and institutions. There is empirical evidence that financial globalization has led to an increase in income inequality, owing both to a trend increase in financial assets (relative to GDP) and to a growing incidence of crises.

The report concludes that “there are widespread perceptions in many countries that globalization does not work to the advantage of the majority of the population.”