Fact check: Did Ohio lose 300,000 manufacturing jobs because of NAFTA?
December 3, 2015
By Charles Aull
As Congress continues to debate the pros and cons of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), some politicians have looked to previous trade deals to make their case.
Recently, U.S. Senate candidate Ted Strickland (D) cited NAFTA, or the North American Free Trade Agreement, as a reason not to support TPP.
A graphic posted on his campaign's Facebook page last month implied that the state of Ohio had lost more than 300,000 jobs because of NAFTA.
"Ohio has lost 320,000 net manufacturing jobs since NAFTA," stated the graphic.[1]
When we looked into the facts of this claim, we found the numbers to be fairly correct—that since NAFTA, roughly 300,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared from Ohio—but what it implies about NAFTA is hotly disputed. Since the trade deal's implementation in the mid-1990s, economists have been divided over what caused the loss of those jobs.
Background
The North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement was a trade deal between the United States, Canada and Mexico that officially took effect in January 1994. Its goal was to facilitate free trade between these three countries by breaking down—and in some cases removing altogether—trade barriers such as tariffs.
The deal was controversial in the U.S. throughout much of the early and mid-90s. Proponents argued that it would create jobs and stimulate the economy, while opponents argued the exact opposite and feared that it would ship jobs overseas.[2]
Ted Strickland, a former governor of Ohio and ex-member of the House of Representatives who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, invoked NAFTA in a graphic posted to his campaign's Facebook account on November 18. The graphic served to illustrate Strickland's opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal between the United States and 11 other countries along the Pacific Rim. Similar to NAFTA, TPP also seeks to facilitate international trade by removing and minimizing tariffs. Polling from the summer suggests that the country is divided in its support for TPP, with less than 50 percent saying it would be a "good thing" for the country, according to a Pew Research poll in June. Of those polled, 29 percent said it would be a bad thing, and 31 percent were uncertain.[3]
The heading of Strickland's graphic says, "Outsourcing: Who's on Your Side? Ohio has lost 320,000 net manufacturing jobs since NAFTA."
The graphic shows side-by-side images of Strickland and his opponent, first-term Senator and former U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman (R). Strickland's image features a caption saying, "Ted Strickland voted against NAFTA. Now Ted is opposing the massive, new Pacific trade deal that has been called NAFTA 2.0." Portman's caption reads, "Senator Portman has been NAFTA's biggest cheerleader, calling it a 'proven success.' Now Portman is supporting the massive, new Pacific trade deal that has been called NAFTA 2.0."[1]
Our focus here is on the 320,000 manufacturing jobs in Ohio. Has the state really lost that many since 1994, and, if so, is NAFTA to blame?
NAFTA and manufacturing jobs in Ohio
The graphic cites as its sources a United States Trade Representative (USTR) press release from March 2006 and Public Citizen, a left-leaning nonprofit and website that describes itself as "leading the charge against undemocratic trade agreements that advance the interests of mega-corporations at the expense of citizens worldwide."[4]
The USTR press release from March 22, 2006, we learned, was the source for Portman calling NAFTA a "proven success." During his tenure as U.S. Trade Representative from 2006 to 2007, Portman stated, "NAFTA has been a proven success for Canada, Mexico and the United States. By reducing barriers to trade and enabling more and better commerce between us, all three of our economies have benefited significantly."[5]
The Public Citizen citation referred to a 2015 report titled "Ohio Job Loss During the NAFTA-WTO Period." It states, "Ohio lost 307,560 manufacturing jobs during the NAFTA-WTO period (1994-2015)." The report was based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and measured Ohio's manufacturing jobs from the "third quarter of 1993 and the first quarter of 2015."[6]
When we took a look at BLS data for Ohio during this period, our numbers were slightly different from Public Citizen's—but they were close.
As seen in the graph below, Ohio had 986,000 manufacturing jobs in September 1993 (end of the third quarter) and 684,000 in March 2015 (end of the first quarter). This totals a net loss of 302,000 manufacturing jobs.[7]
The graph also shows that the manner in which Ohio lost these jobs has not been linear. The state gained jobs in 1994 and held on to them until a sharp drop occurred during the recession of 2000-2001. A second drop occurred between 2008 and 2009—the onset of the Great Recession. The state began regaining jobs toward the end of 2009.
For the sake of comparison, the second graph below shows Ohio's total nonfarm jobs (which includes manufacturing) from 1990 to 2015. It reveals that Ohio's total nonfarm employment followed similar trends to manufacturing jobs in 2001 and 2008-2009, but overall Ohio gained a net 439,000 jobs in the NAFTA era.[7]
The 320,000 lost manufacturing jobs "since NAFTA" mentioned in Ted Strickland's graphic, then, is a slight overstatement—and possibly an oversimplification too—but we argue it's a reasonable estimate and close enough to the 307,000 calculated by Public Citizen and the 302,000 that we found.
Is it NAFTA's fault?
The larger question, however, is whether NAFTA has had anything to do with the loss of these roughly 300,000 jobs.
The answer to that question, we found, depends on who you ask.
Robert Scott, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, says that NAFTA is to blame for the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. In a 2010 study, he attributed the loss of almost 700,000 jobs throughout the country to NAFTA, and in 2014 he stated, "Jobs making cars, electronics, apparel and other goods moved to Mexico, and job losses piled up in the United States, especially in the Midwest where those products used to be made. ... Job losses and wage stagnation are NAFTA's real legacy."[8][9]
A Public Citizen study commemorating the twentieth anniversary of NAFTA in 2014 made a similar argument: "Much of the job erosion stems from the decisions of U.S. firms to embrace NAFTA's new foreign investor privileges and relocate production to Mexico to take advantage of its lower wages and weaker environmental standards."[10]
Organizations like the right-of-center U.S. Chamber of Commerce, on the other hand, see things differently. In a 2014 report, the Chamber argued that increased productivity and technology have caused most job losses in the NAFTA era: "[M]ost of these jobs have been lost to a country called 'productivity.' Technological change, automation, and widespread use of information technologies have allowed firms to boost output even as some have cut payrolls."[11]
Chad Moutray, the chief economist at the National Association of Manufacturers, echoed this sentiment in an op-ed for Newsweek from May 2015, "Manufacturing jobs actually grew by about 800,000 in the four years directly following NAFTA. The reality is that protectionist policies do not work, and free trade does not kill jobs. It grows jobs and expands opportunities for manufacturers in the United States."[12]
But not all economists are ready to point to a singular explanation for the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ohio or the U.S. in the NAFTA era. Mauro Guillen, a professor of international management at the University of Pennsylvania, told us via email, "[I]t is very hard to attribute specific job losses to NAFTA. The key issue is would it have happened without NAFTA? In fact, many counties in the U.S. lost manufacturing jobs prior to NAFTA."[13] (Data from BLS shows that manufacturing jobs in the U.S. peaked in 1979 at 19.5 million. That number had shrunk to less than 17.8 million by 1990.)[14]
Economists at the Congressional Research Service, M. Angeles Villarreal and Ian Ferguson, also expressed caution on drawing conclusions about connections between NAFTA and job losses—or any NAFTA-era economic trends for that matter. They wrote in April 2015:[2]
| “ | The overall economic impact of NAFTA is difficult to measure since trade and investment trends are influenced by numerous other economic variables, such as economic growth, inflation, and currency fluctuations. The agreement may have accelerated the trade liberalization that was already taking place, but many of these changes may have taken place with or without an agreement. ...
The political debate surrounding the agreement was divisive with proponents arguing that the agreement would help generate thousands of jobs and reduce income disparity in the region, while opponents warned that the agreement would cause huge job losses in the United States as companies moved production to Mexico to lower costs. In reality, NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics or the large economic gains predicted by supporters.[15] |
” |
In other words, there appears to be little consensus amongst the experts on what caused Ohio to shed some 300,000 manufacturing jobs since the mid-90s. It could have been NAFTA, but it could also have been the result of technology and automation; or it could have been something else entirely.
Conclusion
In a graphic posted to his campaign's Facebook page, Ted Strickland stated, "Ohio has lost 320,000 net manufacturing jobs since NAFTA." We found the numbers to be largely accurate. One source calculated about 307,000 lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio between 1994 and 2015, while we, using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, came up with 302,000. But the statement's implication that the loss of manufacturing jobs in Ohio was due to NAFTA is misleading. We found that economists are far from united on this issue. Some economists would agree with what Strickland's graphic implies and say that NAFTA is responsible; others say that it isn't; while a third group suggests we simply don't know one way or the other.
Launched in October 2015 and active through October 2018, Fact Check by Ballotpedia examined claims made by elected officials, political appointees, and political candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. We evaluated claims made by politicians of all backgrounds and affiliations, subjecting them to the same objective and neutral examination process. As of 2025, Ballotpedia staff periodically review these articles to revaluate and reaffirm our conclusions. Please email us with questions, comments, or concerns about these articles. To learn more about fact-checking, click here.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Facebook, "Ted Strickland," November 18, 2015
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Congressional Research Service, "The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)," April 16, 2015
- ↑ Pew Research Center, "Americans favor TPP, but less than those in other countries do," June 23, 2015
- ↑ Public Citizen, "About us," accessed December 1, 2015
- ↑ Office of the United States Trade Representative, "USTR Portman to Participate in Annual NAFTA Meeting," March 22, 2006
- ↑ Public Citizen, "Ohio Job Loss During the NAFTA-WTO Period," accessed December 1, 2015
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Databases, Tables & Calculators by Subject," accessed December 1, 2015
- ↑ Economic Policy Institute, "Heading South: U.S.-Mexico trade and job displacement after NAFTA," May 3, 2011
- ↑ Knowledge@Wharton (University of Pennsylvania), "NAFTA, 20 Years Later: Do the Benefits Outweigh the Costs?" February 19, 2014
- ↑ Public Citizen, "NAFTA's 20-Year Legacy and the Fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership," February 2014
- ↑ U.S. Chamber of Commerce, "NAFTA Triumphant: Assessing Two Decades of Gains in Trade, Growth and Jobs," 2014
- ↑ Newsweek, "Free Trade Does Not Cost American Jobs," May 13, 2015
- ↑ Email exchange with Mauro Guillen on November 30, 2015
- ↑ BLS data for Ohio-specific jobs only goes back to 1990. Nationally, BLS data goes back to 1939.
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
 November 20, 2015 |
 October 30, 2015 |
 October 25, 2015 |
