Gains from trade are typically associated with changes in a country’s production structure that may lead to distributional effects. This paper contributes to the existing literature in two ways. First, it analyzes the employment and wage effects of trade on displaced workers based on six case studies, i.e. Swiss firms that were forced to outsource or close down some of their production. Second, it investigates whether for those working in the Swiss manufacturing sector as a whole, an increase in international trade tends to raise their likelihood to become unemployed. We find that the effects of trade on unemployment remain rather limited.