The short-run employment impact of ASEAN- US trade.

Attempts to establish estimates of the effects of trade between the US and ASEAN on their employment opportunities in 1964 and 1975. Reviews changes which took place in the aggregate trade pattern over the period. Points to the increasing dependence of ASEAN on industrial countries in being more vulnerable employment-wise. While the emphasis on export-oriented trade strategy has helped ASEAN growth and employment, the region has become more vulnerable to the domestic policies of countries like the US, in which its products are sold. Moreover, trade barriers erected against manufactured exports from the LDCs, and ASEAN in particular, are more restrictive than those against manufactured exports from the developed world, ironically because labor-intensive products from LDCs are more competitive than their counterparts from the high wage economies. ASEAN trade policies should aim at diversifying its export markets and the range of its exportable commodities.-after Author