<p>Balancing benefits with environmental protection is a key priority in national trade management. While previous studies have shown that the environmental costs and economic benefits of trade are unevenly distributed across countries, less is known about how employment substitution or creation influences environmental-benefit inequalities. Here, we introduce a novel benchmark-based method to objectively reassess global trade inequality from a multi-factor perspective, incorporating global employment transfer data. Our findings indicate a weak correlation between most embodied factor transfers, except between carbon and employment. Meanwhile, global trade’s ability to create employment is weakening, the outward transfer of employment opportunities is reshaping environmental and economic inequalities, and countries that benefit from environmental-economic exchanges (such as South Korea) are facing new challenges. Therefore, international policies should coordinate carbon responsibility allocation with employment stabilization, improve management of trade embodied virtual resources, and enhance workforce adaptability to structural changes to promote equitable and sustainable global development.</p>