China’s secret weapon in the trade war

As China’s export machine sputters under the weight of

145 per cent tariffs,

jobs are at risk. Some 16 million workers are involved in the production of goods bound for America, says Goldman Sachs, a bank. Nomura, another bank, projects a possible 5.7 million job losses in the near term and 15.8 million in the long run as the shock ripples through the economy.

China’s leaders are already yanking levers to soften the blow. At a Politburo meeting on April 25, they vowed to increase rebates of unemployment insurance payments for firms hit by tariffs. But there is another labour market saviour: the vast gig economy. Indeed, President Donald Trump’s trade war could complete that sector’s metamorphosis from a freewheeling industry viewed with suspicion by the Communist Party, into the world’s largest state-approved e-market for labour, with a stronger safety net attached.