To Whom does Outward FDI Give Jobs?

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the impact of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on the overall employment in a sourcing country, using Korean industry-level data for the period 2007-2014. We further decompose the effects of OFDI into types of foreign investment and workers’ skill levels, separately for each employment status (permanent and temporary), so that we capture whether the MNEs initiating foreign investment prefer to employ temporary instead of permanent workers, which is an important issue for both researchers and policy makers.