Do imports and exports exacerbate employment volatility? Evidence from Chinese A-share-listed industrial enterprises

ABSTRACT

To build a new development pattern in China, it is important to study the impact of import and export trade on its employment. We measured employment volatility and empirically analysed the impact of trade status and import and export intensity on the employment volatility of labour requiring different skill levels in A-share-listed industrial enterprises from 2003 to 2015. We found that firms engaging in import and export trade can significantly reduce employment volatility for both high- and low-skilled labour. Furthermore, differences were noted in the degree of impact on the two skill levels. The results indicate that an increase in export intensity does not reduce employment volatility in high-skilled labour. However, an increase in import intensity significantly reduces employment volatility in both high- and low-skilled labour. Moreover, export and import trade reduce employment volatility by reducing the volatility in firms’ output and wages and by promoting investment in research and development.

KEYWORDS:

• Imports and exports
• employment volatility
• labour heterogeneity

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• F1
• F16
• J21
• L25

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Jiajun Yuan for providing lab support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Control variable descriptions are omitted due to space limitations. Please ask the author if needed.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 20720231049) and the Key Research Institutes of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 22JJD790048). The remaining errors are our own