Now, of course, customers can simply go to a grocery store and buy boxes at a time without a second thought to the complex nature of how they came to be in their hands. Non-perishable goods are even easier to come by, requiring the click of a few buttons to get them across countries and seas right to your doorstep. Need a specialized service from someone working in a region hundreds of thousands of miles away? No problem; technology has that solution covered. 

As trade evolves, so do the job roles that support it

Put simply, the movement of goods and services across borders has evolved at a breathtaking pace. Alongside these transformations, the teams that make global commerce possible have grown in both size and sophistication. What was once the domain of a few specialists now involves entire departments dedicated to logistics, technology, supply chain, and trade compliance, the latter being a job area that has recently seen incredible growth. 

Compliance specialization is booming

“Companies with greater than 15% expected growth allocate an average of eight people to trade compliance activities, compared to six in companies anticipating little or no growth,” states a 2025 benchmark study by Descartes Systems Group.

This increase can be attributed to many factors, from geopolitical shifts and tariff policies to shipping disruptions and natural disasters.  

The World Economic Forum also highlights this shift in their paper, Trade Compliance for Leadership, stating, “Non-compliance with new trade requirements could affect hundreds of billions of dollars of trade flows. The stakes are high: compliance safeguards business continuity, avoids supply chain disruption and can be a competitive advantage. It also mitigates the risks of penalties and reputational damage.”  

Customs roles are also becoming a C-suite discussion

Other trade roles seeing expansion include those focused on customs.

“Customs will be used as a business strategy, becoming an important C-Suite level discussion point to navigate the ever-complex international trade waters,” notes a recent article by shipping giant Maersk. And it’s easy to see why.

With a growing web of tariffs, counter-tariffs, and shifting regulations worldwide, importers and exporters must manage their classification codes, documentation, and compliance procedures with precision—or else risk costly penalties and delays. 

And then, there is AI

Virtually all areas of business, including global trade, are being touched by artificial intelligence and associated technologies. In fact, “The global AI in logistics and supply-chain market size was valued at USD 20.1 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 25.9 % between 2025 and 2034,” states a report by Global Market Insights. And these technologies are focused on improving operational cost, streamlining logistics planning, and managing real-time supply chain efficiency—but only if teams are trained on how to operate these new technologies.  

Agility, accuracy, and technology: core focuses for trade teams

All in all, in 2026, trade teams need to lean their roles toward technology, compliance, and risk planning for resiliency.  

The World Economic Forum notes in their Future of Jobs Report that “The most prominent skills differentiating growing from declining jobs are anticipated to comprise resilience, flexibility, and agility; resource management and operations; quality control; programming, and technological literacy.” 

That sets the stage for roles like trade-compliance analyst, customs strategy lead, global trade-technology architect, and import/export risk manager—titles once rare, but now increasingly common.  

A simple browse of current job postings finds top companies like Amazon hiring for Global Trade Compliance PMs or Global Customs Ops Analysts, requiring candidates to have the skills to build scalable trade-compliance programs and broker networks. While grocery chains like Loblaws are looking for Customs and Trade Analysts, roles focused on import and export clearance and risk.  

Globally, there are thousands of jobs focused on customs and international trade compliance, including many on FITT’s job board—making it more important than ever for competitive teams to make these professions a priority for successful international market expansion.

Offshoring, nearshoring, and re-shoring: strategies to mitigate volatility 

With increasingly unpredictable supply chains, companies are also rethinking where and how they allocate their trade teams. Offshoring, nearshoring, and re-shoring have become hot-topic strategies in this conversation—each offering clear advantages and trade-offs. 

• Offshoring refers to relocating production or services to a distant country, often to reduce labour costs or take advantage of specialized expertise. It can yield significant cost savings and access to global talent, but also exposes firms to geopolitical risks, shipping delays, and reduced control over quality and oversight. 

• Nearshoring involves shifting operations or sourcing to a nearby country or region—one that lies closer in geography, culture, or time zone. The proximity allows for faster communication, shorter transit times, and improved responsiveness to market shifts, though it may come with slightly higher labour and logistics costs compared to far-off locations. 

• Re-shoring (or on-shoring) brings previously relocated operations back home, offering the greatest control, supply-chain transparency, and resilience against global disruptions. However, domestic production typically comes with higher costs, and the process of re-establishing facilities and workforces can be both expensive and time-consuming. 

Together, these strategies reflect a broader recalibration of global trade—one that weighs efficiency against resiliency, and cost against certainty. What businesses choose to employ depends on their needs and goals, but they will all have to consider the risky environment in which they exist: 

“Geoeconomic fragmentation and geopolitical tensions are expected to drive business-model transformation in one-third (34 %) of surveyed organizations in the next five years. Over one-fifth (23 %) of global employers identify increased restrictions on trade and investment … as factors shaping their operations,” states the World Economic Forum in their job report, pinpointing the need for businesses to be prepared from all angles.  

Training is a unifying factor for all roles

At the heart of these workforce transitions lies a single, unifying factor—the need for continual training and upskilling. Finding employees with a new set of in-demand skills isn’t something that happens overnight. Most often, it starts with giving current teams training to upgrade their knowledge to current-day trends. 

“If the world’s workforce was made up of 100 people, 59 would need training by 2030. Of these, employers foresee that 29 could be upskilled in their current roles and 19 could be upskilled and redeployed elsewhere within their organization. However, 11 would be unlikely to receive the reskilling or upskilling needed, leaving their employment prospects increasingly at risk,” warns the WEF. 

Lora Rigutto, Partnerships and Community Lead at FITT, agrees. She personally sees how training benefits companies and employees working in international trade daily: 

“I’ve seen how upskilling and trade training can change the trajectory of both employers and employees. Many who complete FITT’s international trade training go on to work in government, policy, and business at some of the world’s leading organizations, while others use that knowledge to grow their own SMEs.”

What really stands out is the value of having a CITP®—someone with a broad, practical understanding of international trade who can connect the full A-to-Z process, from market entry and compliance to sales and growth strategy. Whether in a large enterprise or a small business just getting started, that ability to see the whole picture and bring in accredited knowledge created by business for business, along with industry best practices and frameworks—makes a meaningful difference.” 

The world is changing, but resiliency will always remain a strength

In 2025, it may seem like our world is changing faster than ever. But it’s important to put these shifts into perspective. Only 100 years ago, we were still delivering some products by horse and buggy. 50 years ago, we were sending customs documents via fax machines, and just 25 years ago, the biggest technological threat that dominated the headlines was Y2K. The point being, the world has always been in a state of rapid change, but those who flourish in it, no matter the challenge, remain aware, prepared, and upskilled for those changes. 

Curious about current job roles in trade? Below is a list of popular trade jobs that companies currently hire for: 

See active international trade job listings here 

• International Trade Consultant: Advises companies on entering new markets or expanding globally including assessing tariffs, trade agreements, and regulatory risks and recommending supply chain and market entry strategies 
• Export Manager: Responsible for planning, executing, and overseeing a company’s sales of goods or services into foreign markets; a mix of strategy, operations, and relationship management 
• Commodity Trader: Buys and sells commodities, such as agricultural products or metals, on international markets. 
• Economist: Analyzes data and develops theories related to the production and circulation of goods, services, and resources in a global context. 
• Data Analyst: Analyzes data for companies to help inform business decisions, which can include international market data.  

Logistics and supply chain

• Freight Forwarder: Manages the transportation of goods, including coordinating shipments, choosing carriers, and negotiating terms. 
• Logistics Specialist: Handles the planning and management of international logistics, including warehousing and last-mile delivery. 
• Customs Clearance Specialist: Processes paperwork for inbound and outbound shipments to ensure goods clear customs without delays. 
• Ocean/Air Export/Import Coordinator: Manages the specific details of export or import shipments via sea or air freight.  

Sales, marketing, and business development

• International Sales and Partnerships Manager: Develops and manages relationships with international partners and clients. 
• International Marketing Manager: Creates and implements marketing strategies for products and services in global markets. 
• Business Development Manager: Focuses on expanding a company’s business through new markets, partnerships, and services, often within a specific sector like freight forwarding.  

Compliance and analysis

• Trade Compliance Specialist/Manager: Ensures a company’s operations adhere to all trade regulations, sanctions, and export/import laws. 
• Customs Broker: Acts as an intermediary between businesses and government customs agencies, navigating complex regulations to facilitate the movement of goods. 
• International Trade Analyst: Conducts research and analysis to help companies make informed decisions about global markets and trade policies. 
• Policy Analyst: Researches and analyzes policy outcomes, which can be applied to trade policies and social issues.  

The post Growing global trade jobs: Top roles, skills, and trends to watch in 2026 appeared first on Trade Ready.

Today a raging debate is playing out across many stages. Is trade, particularly free trade, beneficial to the nations involved or is foreign direct investment (FDI) stealing away jobs and hurting countries’ economies?

There is no dearth of strong opinions on the matter, as evidenced by the many vocal protests of trade deals in progress and the continuing protectionist discourse during the U.S. presidential election. However, is any argument on the matter speaking from the right statistics? And what are the right statistics to give us a full picture of the economic and social impacts of trade?

Export Development Canada (EDC) decided to embark on a mission to get a more accurate picture of what foreign investment is really doing to Canada’s economy and employment levels.

In July 2015, EDC began a first-of-its-kind web-based survey of 546 Canadian companies with foreign affiliates across a wide variety of sectors. The survey asked a combination of searching questions to find out the truth about foreign affiliates’ employment, operation, wages, and competitiveness.

The findings from the survey painted a much more hopeful picture of what happens at home when Canadian companies invest abroad.

20^th century-style statistics don’t reflect today’s trade realities

“Contrary to popular belief, Canada’s international trade is remarkably diversified,” the whitepaper summary of the report begins.

Canadian companies, both large and small, have made sizeable foreign footprints and begun to tap into emerging market consumption growth and expanding South-South trade networks.

Production networks were once limited to one single country to another. In the last few decades, developments in information technology, complex global value chains, and trade and investment deals have changed the way we trade across borders. Now, production networks look much more like a web, with inputs from several different places before a final product lands in the country where it will be sold.

As Stephen Poloz said, “National economies today no longer fit inside the lines on the map. Companies are simply ignoring those geographical boundaries. This materially affects how we should look at trade and how we should interpret trade statistics.”

Measuring trade in gross terms, rather than examining the value-add inputs from countries along the supply chain, fails to tell us the whole story of where commodities actually came from and where they went. In essence, it’s giving the entire value and origin of the export to the last country that input any component before landing in its final destination.

As Pascal Lamy, former head of the WTO puts it:

Using this logic, iPhones are Chinese.

Foreign affiliate sales have changed the game for Canadian trade

The increase in foreign investment in Canada began seeing major growth in 2003 and has positively impacted the country’s trade diversification and revenue generation. The report states:

“Foreign affiliate sales grew by 61 per cent between 1999 (earliest available data) and 2013. That is nearly double the speed of Canada’s merchandise goods export growth, which came in at 33 per cent, and 1.6 times the pace of total exports (including services), which came in at 38 per cent.”

Investment through foreign affiliates overtook merchandise exports as Canada’s top revenue generator in 2006, and topped exports by almost $40 billion in 2013. This growth has a lot to do with Canadian affiliate sales in emerging markets, which nearly tripled in between 1999 and 2012.

The growth in foreign affiliate sales is largely due to an upswing in trade in services. When the financial crisis hit in 2008, foreign affiliate commodity export sales began to suffer after enjoying a period of prosperity in the previous five years.

During that same period, however, foreign affiliate service exports were steadily increasing. By 2013, they were generating revenue equal to the commodities.

To look at the impact of foreign affiliates another way, Canadian companies exporting services directly earned $160 billion less than Canadian companies with international platforms. Foreign affiliates earned 2.7 times more revenue than their domestic counterparts.

“Offshoring costing Canadian jobs” debunked?

Canadian direct investment, often referred to as offshoring, has a bad reputation for eliminating jobs at home and is commonly misconstrued with outsourcing. Where outsourcing is the practice of hiring a foreign company to produce a product or service, offshoring is when a business expands and sets up shop in a foreign country, while still remaining a branch of a Canadian-owned company.

In the past few years, a measurable downturn in Canadian manufacturing jobs has lent credence to the suspicion that increased FDI has a negative impact on employment at home.

In order to put the blame on offshoring efforts, there should be a correlating increase in manufacturing jobs with those Canadian companies abroad. However, the numbers paint a different picture. Manufacturing employment shrunk by 25% between 2005 and 2010, but since then has remained stable.

There are many economic factors that impact employment rates, but when employee registers are examined in Canadian companies overseas, it’s evident that their workforces also decreased beginning in 2005.

The trends mirror each other, and EDC argues that this makes it highly unlikely that foreign affiliates have been absorbing Canadian jobs.

Foreign investment flows both ways

Manufacturing jobs are facing an observable downward trend worldwide in developed, high-income nations. But it’s not all bad news. Foreign investment flowing into Canada has been a good thing for the country’s manufacturing sector and the data is only now starting to tell us how good.

In 2013, the latest time period we have data from, around 1.9 million Canadians – that’s one third of the total manufacturing workforce – were employed by foreign companies. It’s also notable that according to the latest data, foreign affiliates within Canada have hired 272,000 more people than Canadian affiliates abroad.

To really determine whether outbound investment has a negative or positive impact on the home country’s economy, the key is to look at the rationale behind the investment.

For example, when a company chooses to invest in offshoring in order to cut labour costs, the impact on the home economy is unsurprisingly negative. But, when a company invests abroad in order to grow, and access new markets and global value chains, the results are often positive for both the country of investment and the home country.

As the report so eloquently explains:

Direct investment abroad serves as a beachhead for market access, thus stimulating domestically produced exports and high value-added head office activities.

Want to read EDC’s detailed findings? Click here to read the full report and whitepaper.

The post Canadian companies are driving growth at home through foreign investment appeared first on Trade Ready.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership was finalized in October, and has since been a topic of intense debate.

However, due to the size of the final document and its many specifics concerning tariff liberalization, customs, trade facilitation, competition, and other critical topics, it’s understandably taking time for all of the new stipulations to be digested by the larger public.

As environmental groups and analysts make headway with reading through and analyzing the agreement, some groups have come out resolutely against the agreement, arguing that tying these economies together more tightly will make it harder to pass more stringent environmental regulations in the future.

Environmental regulations don’t go far enough

One U.S. law professor pointed out that this is the first multilateral treaty in recent years which required the adoption of only one multilateral environmental agreement, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Previous trade treaties required constituent parties to abide by seven of these types of agreements.

Moreover, environmental groups point out that according to the terms of the trade agreement, a state will not be in violation of these regulations if it fails to comply with the stipulations set out in the agreement.

Violating an environmental aspect of the TPP requires proof that the measures taken by the country in question not only go against the environmental rules, but also affect trade and investment with other signatory states.

Complete silence on climate change

Environmentalists are also upset by the treaty’s lack of regulations on Japan’s whaling trade or Singapore’s trade in shark fins, and are particularly concerned that the trade agreement fails to mention climate change or global warming at all.

“Beyond making no effort to combat climate disruption, the TPP would actually fuel the climate crisis,” the Sierra Club said in its report, “A Dirty Deal,” released earlier in December.

If approved, the pact would increase greenhouse gas emissions and undermine efforts to transition to clean energy.

The organization also maintains that the deal would open up avenues for oil and gas firms to overturn energy policies in trade dispute tribunals, and increase greenhouse gas emissions by spurring companies to move their manufacturing hubs to less environmentally friendly economies.

Overfishing provisions the one bright spot

It’s not all doom and gloom for the environment, however, with specific regulations attached to try to stem overfishing.

The environmental chapter includes provisions that prohibit signatory nations from providing subsidies to fishing practices which promote or support overfishing of marine species deemed to be in danger by national governments, regional fishery management organizations, or scientific evidence.

Moreover, TPP participant nations are now prohibited from extending existing subsidies that would endanger low stocks of endangered fish.

Countries are also required to notify trade partners of fishing subsidies which are part of their policies, as well as additional information about the state of the fish population.

The measure is significant, as participants in the TPP trade agreement – which encompasses 12 nations, or an estimated 40% of the world’s economy – account for eight of the top 20 global fishing nations.

Mixed opinions sparking conversations about next steps

Though the Sierra Club is decidedly disappointed in the agreement, the World Wildlife Fund is encouraged.

“No major trade agreement before this one has gone so far to address growing pressures on natural resources like overexploited fish, wildlife, and forests,” WWF-US President and CEO Carter Roberts said in October, shortly after the talks were completed.

With the right implementation and compliance procedures, the conservation commitments in this trade agreement could be game-changers.

Roberts added that each nation will have to individually undertake the appropriate policies to comply with the regulations.

While some environmental groups claim the TPP agreement will make it harder to implement new, more ambitious environmental regulations, one lawyer pointed out that the agreement is an important step to ensure that countries which fail to comply with existing environmental regulations will catch up to their peers.

Furthermore, making it harder for participant nations to introduce new economic policies is not as dangerous as some environmental groups make it seem.

Governments have used environmental policies to limit foreign competition, which has led to protectionist policies, resulting in domestic industries continuing to violate existing environmental protocols.

Do you think the TPP agreement goes far enough to address environmental issues?

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