Trade in tasks has been actively examined in recent trade theories, although empirical trade research has a long tradition of measuring the factor content of trade. By linking data on occupations, tasks, labour inputs and international trade, we calculate the “task content of trade” in the case of Japan. Our results show that substantial decreases in the net exports of technical tasks, especially operation tasks, strongly characterize the changes in Japan's international trade during the 1995–2005 period.