The institute estimated that nearly 77 percent, or more than 2.1 million, of the lost jobs were in manufacturing.
The think tank receives about 30 percent of its funding from union groups, which have pressed both the administration and Congress for tougher steps to rein in the growing trade deficit with China, which hit a record $295 billion in 2011.
China, known as the world’s factory because of its huge manufacturing sector, is the world’s second-largest economy, having raced past Japan in recent years. Robert Scott, the institute’s director of trade and manufacturing policy research, said Chinese government intervention in currency markets to keep its yuan at a low value against the U.S. dollar was a major cause of the trade deficit. China’s undervalued currency effectively subsidizes its exports and taxes its imports, he said. Scott told Reuters he believed the yuan was still undervalued by at least 33 percent against the dollar, even though it has risen in value in recent years.
