Topic: Parachute with Work and Beyond? Nonstandard Jobs during Trade Conflicts

Speaker: He Chuan, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, School of Economics

Time: October 17, 2024 ,10:00      

Venue: EMS 419

Abstract: Nonstandard work (NSW) — encompassing flexible, informal, and dispatched employment — is reshaping labor markets around the world. Amid the escalating US-China trade tensions, we analyze millions of Chinese online job postings to uncover NSW's role as a critical adjustment mechanism during economic disruptions. Our findings reveal that NSW is predominantly concentrated in economically developed cities and sectors such as real estate, transportation, and culture, and is heavily oriented toward low-skilled tasks. Unlike standard employment, NSW exhibits resilience to tariff-induced shocks. As US tariffs constrain job opportunities and suppress wages for standard workers, firms increasingly turn to NSW, especially favoring less experienced and dispatched roles, while maintaining wage levels. China’s retaliatory tariffs further intensify the demand for NSW, resulting in a significant rise in job postings and wages. Through a simple trade model, we demonstrate how NSW influences responses to external shocks and examine the welfare implications, underscoring the growing importance of NSW in stabilizing labor markets amid global trade disruptions.

Guest Bio: Chuan He obtained her PhD in Economics at the University of California, Davis in 2018. She is an Assistant Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Chuan’s lie at the intersection of labor economics, international trade, and public health, with a particular focus on how technological advances, trade, and economic transformation influence firm behavior and labor market dynamics. Her research agenda involves using frontier methods in causal inference and big data analysis, leveraging large-scale firm-level and population-based microdata to analyze firm decisions and labor markets. Her work has been published in academic journals such as Labour Economics, Applied Economics, and Economic Science.