Press Release - 22nd April 2008

Up to 6.5 million EU jobs could depend on trade with UK

Much publicity is given to the fact that a significant number of British jobs, frequently quoted to be around 3 million, depend on exports to the EU. This is undoubtedly true.

But analyses that concentrate on this fact, to the exclusion of others, are incomplete for two reasons. Firstly, they ignore the British jobs "lost" because of UK imports from the EU. Given that Britain has a large trade deficit with the EU these "lost" jobs probably exceed the number of jobs created by exports to the EU. And, secondly, they ignore the number of jobs created in the EU by their exports to Britain. Again, given Britain's large trade deficit with the EU, jobs created in the EU are likely to exceed those created in the UK.

In a new paper for Global Vision, Ruth Lea addresses the second deficiency. Using standard international data and making certain economic assumptions, she calculates that 4.5 million British jobs may be dependent on exports to the EU, but as many as 6.5 million EU jobs may depend on exports to the UK.  

Ruth Lea, Director of Global Vision, said:

"UK-EU trade creates jobs in both the UK and the other countries of the EU but, arguably, many more jobs are created in the EU, taken as a whole, than in the UK. This rather obvious fact is all too often left out of the debate. It can be fairly claimed that the rest of the EU needs the UK more than we need them. It is inconceivable that other EU countries would wish to jeopardize the benefits they gain from trading with the UK by acting in, for example, a protectionist way, if we sought a looser, more modern relationship with the EU."