On trade and employment

International Economy, The, Summer, 2007 by Matthew Rees

"To see the irrelevance of trade to total employment, we need only observe that, between 1965 and 2006, the share of imports in the U.S. economy nearly quadrupled, from 4.4 percent of GDP to 16.8 percent. Yet, reflecting growth in the labor force, employment more than doubled during that time, and the unemployment rate was at about 4.5 percent at both the beginning and end of the period. Furthermore, average real compensation per hour in the United States has nearly doubled since 1965."

--Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on trade, May 1