Key Details
ILO Working Paper 181, Advancing Green Trade and Employment under Global Uncertainty, links projected exports of environmental goods to the jobs needed to produce them and supply their domestic inputs. Its 2030 figures are modelled changes from a 2023 base.
Measure | Finding |
|---|---|
Global green-goods trade, 2023 | US$1.92 trillion, or 9.2% of world merchandise trade |
Additional jobs linked to export growth by 2030 | 9.475 million globally in the baseline scenario: 3.459 million direct and 6.016 million indirect |
Where the additional jobs are concentrated | China: 3.63 million; East Asia and Pacific: 2.37 million; European Union: 1.65 million |
South Asia | 78,000 additional jobs across the region—about 0.01% of its employment |
Tariff-escalation scenario | 530,000 fewer jobs globally than in the baseline, including around 3,900 fewer in South Asia |
A Growing Market Does Not Spread Jobs Evenly
The goods covered by the paper include products classified as environmental goods by the IMF. By 2023, machinery, motor vehicles, electrical equipment, and computers and electronics together accounted for almost four-fifths of their global trade. Electric passenger vehicles alone represented more than US$300 billion.
The employment gains in the ILO’s baseline follow the existing geography of production. China, East Asia and Pacific, and the European Union account for most of the 9.5 million additional jobs modelled through 2030. South Asia’s estimated gain is comparatively small, and the paper does not provide a separate estimate for India. The regional figure should therefore not be reported as an Indian jobs forecast.
Most Jobs Would Be in Domestic Supply Chains
Only about 3.5 million of the modelled jobs are directly in sectors exporting green goods. Roughly 6 million are indirect jobs associated with domestic inputs and services used to make those exports. This distinction matters: the employment opportunity extends beyond final-product factories to suppliers, trade, transport and other activities.
The composition differs by region. In the model’s South Asian results, indirect jobs substantially outnumber direct ones. The paper cautions that detailed sectoral shares for South Asia should be read carefully because the underlying base is small.
Tariffs Reduce Gains; Job Quality Has a Gender Divide
The paper also simulates higher US tariffs on major trading partners and retaliation by those partners. Against its baseline, this stylised scenario reduces global green-trade employment gains by about 530,000 jobs, rather than reversing them altogether. It is an illustration of trade-policy risk, not a forecast of tariffs that will be implemented.
The modelled jobs are more likely to be formal than employment across the economy as a whole. Women, however, are underrepresented in both direct and indirect green-trade employment: the estimated female shares are 19 and 17.9 percentage points lower, respectively, than the economy-wide comparison. More green exports would not, on their own, make the employment gains gender-balanced.
Policy Relevance
For India, the South Asian result poses a question about participation in export supply chains, not about the size of the domestic clean-technology market. Producing more environmental goods for domestic use may advance energy and industrial objectives, but it is not the same as capturing the export-linked jobs estimated here.
The paper makes three considerations relevant to Indian policy:
Industrial and trade capability: Competitive components, manufacturing capacity and access to export markets shape where green-trade jobs arise.
Domestic linkages: Since most estimated jobs are indirect, the strength of local suppliers and services affects how much employment an export industry supports.
Who gets the jobs: The formal-employment advantage sits alongside a pronounced gender gap, making recruitment and access to relevant occupations part of the employment question.
Follow the Full Paper Here: ILO Working Paper 181: Advancing Green Trade and Employment under Global Uncertainty