Growing economic integration worldwide and the spread of global value chains (GVCs) increases the sensitivity of employment in one country or region to changes in demand in other countries or regions. However, traditional statistics do not reveal the full nature of global interdependencies, notably how consumption in one country may drive production and, therefore, sustain employment in economies further up the value chain.

The OECD’s Inter-Country Input-Output (ICIO) database, developed primarily to produce indicators of Trade in Value Added (TiVA), also allows indicators to be developed that can provide insights into the origins of demand driving a country’s employment. Estimates of employment sustained by foreign final demand (or by exporting activities) can reveal the extent to which a country’s workforce depends on its integration into the global economy.

The Trade in Employment (TiM) database presents indicators of employment by industry, consistent with output and value added in the TiVA database for all OECD, European Union and G20 countries among 10 others. Additionally, it presents similar indicators for labour compensation for all 76 TiVA countries.

The Trade in Employment by characteristics (TiMBC) database serves as an extension of TiM, whereby TiM indicators of employment are decomposed by characteristics, namely gender, age, education and occupation. This exercise is done at the expense of a reduced country, industry and time coverage.