The Korean Journal of Economic Studies
The Korea-China Trade and Its Consequence in Korea’s Labor Market
Jungho Kim (Ajou University)Year 2019Vol. 67No. 4
Abstract
The paper investigates the employment effects in Korea of the trade betweenKorea and China. Using UN Comtrade database, Input-Output Statistics bythe Bank of Korea and Ordinary Wage Structure Survey for the period from1994 to 2014, it estimates that wage earners’ employment declined by 0.5%per year prior to 2002 but that it increased at an 0.9% per year since then.The former is largely due to the intensified competition in the global exportmarket with China and the latter is through the expansion of net exports toChina. Among workers, the male with college degree and high wage and thefemale with low education and low wage are found to have gainedemployment. The findings imply that the labor market consequence of tradewith China depends on its structure.