Working Paper: NBER ID: w28072
Authors: Hanming Fang; Chunmian Ge; Hanwei Huang; Hongbin Li
Abstract: This paper studies how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected labor demand using over 100 million posted jobs on one of the largest online platforms in China. Our data reveals that, due to the effects of the pandemic both in China and abroad, the number of newly posted jobs within the first 13 weeks after the Wuhan lockdown on January 23, 2020 was about one third lower than that of the same lunar calendar weeks in 2018 and 2019. Using econometric methods, we show that, via the global supply chain, COVID-19 cases abroad and in particular pandemic-control policies by foreign governments reduced new job creations in China by 11.7%. We also find that Chinese firms most exposed to international trade outperformed other firms at the beginning of the pandemic but underperformed during recovery as the Novel Coronavirus spread throughout the world.
Keywords: COVID-19; Labor Demand; Global Supply Chains; China; Job Creation
JEL Codes: F16; J2
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Local COVID-19 cases (R53) | Job creation (J23) |
| Domestic COVID-19 cases (Y10) | Job creation (J23) |
| Foreign COVID-19 shocks (F69) | Job creation (J23) |
| COVID-19 cases in other parts of China (F69) | Job creation (J23) |
| Trade exposure (F14) | Job creation during recovery (J23) |