Serving the service worker : how modern workers fare in trade adjustment assistance

Abstract

Thesis (M.P.P.)--Georgetown University, 2011.; Includes bibliographical references.; Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. Modern telecommunications and data transmission technologies allow businesses and consumers to purchase services abroad with ease. The subsequent increases in service imports, and the relocation of business processes offshore, mean that workers performing previously non-tradeable services are now at risk of permanent job displacement due to international trade. The service worker population displaced by trade, typically better educated and paid than trade-displaced manufacturing workers (Jensen and Kletzer 2005), poses a unique set of challenges to the principle public program for trade-displaced workers, Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA).; This thesis examines Trade Adjustment Assistance participant data to test whether the trade-displaced service workers who enroll in the program adhere to earlier findings on differences relative to manufacturing workers in earnings and education and how their success at reemployment and wage replacement compare with other workers in the TAA program.