CITAC Shrimp Task Force

Will Jobs Be Impacted?

Shrimp Case Could Seriously Hurt U.S. Jobs

The Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC)/American Seafood Distributors Association (ASDA) Shrimp Task Force opposes the shrimp antidumping petitions because they will do nothing to help the domestic shrimp industry. Instead, the petitions will limit American consumers' access to reasonably priced shrimp and damage shrimp consuming industries. This means that efforts to “protect” the domestic shrimp industry from global competition and “save” jobs will have the “unintended consequence” of hurting far more American jobs in the consuming sector. U.S. trade remedy laws were never intended to hurt American workers.

Imported shrimp accounts for almost 90% of a rapidly-growing American shrimp market. Imports are important because U.S. shrimp production is limited by nature: U.S. fishermen catch shrimp in open waters using boats and nets rather than raising it on aquaculture farms. Open water "shrimping" is less efficient, less predictable, and far more expensive than aquaculture, used by countries that export shrimp to the United States.

The antidumping petitions propose to tax the vast majority of American shrimp imports. Imports from the six targeted countries in the trade case account for approximately 72% percent of U.S. shrimp imports.

Shrimp-producing and
Shrimp-consuming jobs
interactive map. View

In total, the domestic shrimp industry accounts for only about 13,000 jobs (based on the U.S. International Trade Commission's 2002 data). In stark contrast, more than 250,000 U.S. jobs are linked to shrimp consumption. Far more U.S. jobs would be adversely affected by the imposition of duties in this investigation than would benefit from those duties.

For every one job in the US shrimp-producing industry, there are 20 other US shrimp processing or distributing jobs. Higher prices for shrimp will cause some of these jobs to disappear, and the take-home pay of others to suffer.


   
 

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