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Digital platforms and informal employment in China's road freight transportation: A perspective of skill-biased technological change
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DOI：10.1016/j.retrec.2026.101778.png)
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Abstract
En 中文
Based on the hypothesis of skill biased technological change (SBTC), this paper explores the impact of digital platforms (DPs) on self-employed truckers in China's road freight sector. Analysis of the provincial panel data reveals that: (i) DPs increase the number of self-employed truckers, but only for light-duty truckers, with no significant effect on medium- or heavy-duty truckers; (ii) DPs enhance transportation productivity by significantly reducing road freight turnover rather than road freight volume; (iii) DPs boost formal employment and raise the ratio of formal to informal employment in the transportation sector, confirming the SBTC hypothesis. The findings of this study touch upon the social sustainability in road freight transportation. For those self-employed truckers, DPs have increased the job quantity at the cost of the job quality. Platformization intensifies competition among individual truckers. It also heightens platform–trucker conflicts of interest, manifested in platform authoritarianism. Moreover, competition among platforms themselves is escalating. Ultimately, SBTC has exerted extensive and profound impacts on employment in both the transportation and manufacturing, and its negative effects deserve more attention from policymakers.
Keywords:
digital platforms
skill-biased technological change
informal employment
road freight transportation
platformization
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