Growing economic integration worldwide and the spread of global value chains (GVCs) increases the sensitivity of employment in one country or region to changes in demand in other countries or regions. However, traditional statistics do not reveal the full nature of global interdependencies - notably how consumption in one country may drive production and therefore, sustain employment in other economies or, how employment in an upstream domestic industry may be affected by exporting activities of other domestic industries.

This document describes the sources and methods used to produce the indicators in the Trade in employment (TiM) database. These indicators were developed, as a complement to Trade in Value Added (TiVA) indicators, to provide broad insights into the impact of GVCs on labour markets. The indicators are derived by combining the latest set of OECD Inter-Country Input-Output (ICIO) tables, covering the years 2005 to 2015, with appropriate employment by industry statistics.