美國這個重要的商業領域與世界其他國家有著巨大的貿易順差。貿易戰令其就業面臨風險（1/2）

 Recently Yahoo News on-line picked up the following:

This key American business sector has a massive trade surplus with the rest of the world. Its jobs are at risk in a trade war (1/2)

Chris Isidore, CNN

Fri, April 11, 2025 at 2:00 a.m. PDT 7 min read

While the White House wages a trade war on behalf of US manufacturing, the largest and most important part of the American economy — one that has a trade surplus, not a gap — is under threat.

The US trade gap, caused by American consumers and businesses importing more goods than they’re exporting, has gotten all the attention in the debate over tariffs

But we sell far more services than we purchase from other countries. This means the US service sector enjoys a trade surplus with almost every trading partner around the globe, including those at the center of the trade battle: China, the European Union member states, Canada and Mexico.

America’s trade surplus in services rose to $293 billion in 2024, up 5% from 2023 and up 25% from 2022, according to Commerce Department data.

Service sector businesses “are all industries that power American economic growth. They’re the US economy’s secret sauce,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. “We sell a lot of services into the rest of the world and these countries know that and they’ll use it against us that if push comes to shove. They can put up trade barriers and enforce new standards before you come into the country.”

And that’s why even if tariffs brought back some manufacturing jobs, likely years from now, those US factory jobs may not make up for the loss of service sector jobs.

The service sector includes just about anything that doesn’t come out of a factory, farm, mine, or oil well. It includes retailers, restaurants and hotels, as well as software, internet and telecom providers. There are truckers and airlines, movie studios and media companies. It’s also schools and health care providers, lawyers and accountants.

Services long dominated American jobs

Jobs in the service sector have long driven the US economy, despite the image of a mid-20th century America as a country backed by manufacturers.

The service sector employed 57% of private sector non-farm workers in 1939, in the midst of the Great Depression, when the Labor Department started tracking US employment. Today, service sector businesses account for 84% of those jobs.

Manufacturers accounted for as much as 44% of private sector jobs during World War II, but that has been falling steadily since then. Last year, less than 10% of private sector employees worked in manufacturing, according to the Labor Department data. That’s primarily due to automation and the growth of the service sector. Trade is a distant third for the causes of its reduced importance.

It’s normal for manufacturing jobs to shrink as a percentage of employment as a country gets wealthier and more technologically advanced, according to Cardiff Garcia, editorial director of the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan public policy organization.

“That’s just the way an economy evolves,” Garcia told CNN on Thursday. “If you want to employ a big share American workers in manufacturing, you almost have to drag the economy back into the past.”

(to be continued)

Translation

美國這個重要的商業領域與世界其他國家有著巨大的貿易順差。貿易戰令其就業面臨風險（1/2）

當白宮代表美國製造業發動貿易戰時，美國經濟中最大、最重要的部分 - 貿易順差而非逆差 - 正受到威脅。

美國貿易逆差是由美國消費者和企業進口商品多於出口造成的，在關稅辯論中引起了廣泛的關注。

但我們銷售的服務遠遠多於從其他國家購買商品。這意味著美國服務業幾乎與全球所有貿易夥伴都享有貿易順差，包括處於貿易戰中心的國家：中國、歐盟成員國、加拿大和墨西哥。

美國商務部的數據顯示，2024年美國服務貿易順差將增加至2,930億美元，較2023年成長5%，較2022年成長25%。

穆迪分析公司首席經濟學家 Mark Zandi表示，服務業「都是推動美國經濟成長的產業，是美國經濟的秘密武器」。 「我們向世界其他國家提供大量服務，這些國家知道這一點，如果情況緊急，他們會利用這一點來對付我們。他們可以在你進入他們國家之前設置貿易壁壘，並強制執行新的標準」。

這就是為什麼即使關稅多年後可能帶來一些製造業就業崗位，這些美國工廠就業機會也可能無法彌補服務業就業機會的損失。

服務業幾乎涵蓋了所有非來自工廠、農場、礦場或油井的產品。其中包括零售商、餐廳和飯店，以及軟體、網路和電信供應商。有卡車司機和航空公司、電影製片廠和媒體公司。還有學校、醫療保健提供者、律師和會計師。

 

服務業長期主導美國就業市場

儘管 20 世紀中葉的美國給人的印像是一個以製造業為支撐的國家，但長期以來服務業的就業一直是美國經濟的驅動力。

在1939年正值大蕭條時期，當時美國勞工部開始追蹤美國就業狀況，服務業僱用了私人領域非農業工人的57%。如今，服務業企業佔​​了這些就業機會的84%。

第二次世界大戰期間，製造業佔了私領域就業機會的44%，但自那以後，這一比例一直在穩步下降。根據勞工部的數據，去年私人領域員工在製造業工作的人數不到 10%。這主要是由於自動化和服務業的成長。貿易在導致其重要性下降的原因中排很大差距的第三位。

兩黨公共政策組織的 經濟創新集團 的編輯主任 Cardiff Garcia 表示，隨著一個國家變得更加富裕和技術更加先進，製造業就業機會佔就業的比例下降是正常的。

Garcia 週四告訴美國有線電視新聞網 (CNN)： “這就是經濟發展的方式”; “如果你想在製造業僱用大量美國工人，你幾乎必須將經濟拖回到過去。”

（待續）