Do Multinational Corporations Export Jobs?
by TF Staff As Congress debates how best to reform U.S. international tax rules, some lawmakers have expressed concern that these changes could encourage U.S. multinational companies to “ship American jobs overseas.” Economic studies, however, show that these concerns are misplaced. Indeed, the evidence indicates that improving the competitive position of U.S. multinational firms in the global market returns substantial dividends to the U.S. economy. In 2000, U.S. non-bank multinationals and their majority-owned affiliates generated nearly $2.7 trillion in gross output – equal to 27 percent of the U.S. Gross National Product that year. These parent firms employed 23 million people in the U.S., about one of every five jobs in the economy. 45 percent of all manufacturing workers are employed by U.S. parent firms while 53 percent of all workers in the “information” industry (publishing, movies, and broadcasting) are employed by U.S. parents. By contrast, the foreign subsidiaries of U.S. p
