NEW YORK: Wal-Mart Stores Inc’s import of goods from China led to the loss of more than 400,000 jobs in the US between 2001 and 2013, according to a report from a US-based non-profit think tank.
The world’s largest retailer likely accounted for 15.3 percent of the growth in the US goods trade deficit with China in the same period, the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute (EPI) yesterday said in a report.
The US’ goods trade deficit with China increased almost fourfold to US$324.2 billion in the 12 years till 2013, with Wal-Mart accounting for US$48.1 billion of the total, the non-partisan think tank said.
“Wal-Mart has aided China’s abuse of labor rights and its violations of internationally recognized norms of fair trade by providing a vast and ever-expanding conduit for the distribution of artificially cheap and subsidized Chinese exports to the United States,” the EPI said.
The think tanks also said that Wal-Mart’s plan to source more US-made goods had resulted in very few actual manufacturing jobs being created.
Wal-Mart said that EPI’s analysis was “flawed” and that the company adds jobs through areas of its business such as supply chain, logistics and distribution.
Wal-Mart also cited a report by Boston Consulting Group that said the company would create an estimated 1 million new US jobs by 2023 through its US manufacturing initiatives, including direct job growth of about 250,000.
The EPI said the rising US trade deficit and more Wal-Mart imports will likely displace much more manufacturing jobs than the company creates in the US over the next decade.
Wal-Mart had said in 2013 it would buy US$50 billion of US-made products by 2023, a target it later boosted to US$250 billion after coming under pressure from unions and other critics who said the company’s drive for low cost goods was undermining US jobs.
The EPI gets support from labor organizations such as the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which have backed campaigns by Wal-Mart employees to improve pay and benefits.
