The tradable sector of a country's economy is made up of the industry sectors whose output in terms of goods and services are traded internationally, or could be traded internationally given a plausible variation in relative prices. Most commonly, the tradable sector consists largely of sectors of the manufacturing industry, while the non-tradable sector consists of locally-rendered services, including health, education, retail and construction.[1]
Tradable jobs can be performed by individuals outside a country: manufacturing, consulting, engineering, finance. Non-tradable jobs can realistically only be performed by domestic workforce: government, health care, hospitality, food service, education, retail, and construction.[2] Australia
In 1990, Australia's sectoral outputs were 25.8% tradable and 74.2% non-tradable. Mining and manufacturing accounted for 18.3% and 61.4%, respectively, of the tradable sector.[1]
I have no figures for China, but that does not matter at all because the issue here is about the flexibility or easiness with which resources can be moved from the tradable sector to the non-tradable sector of the economy. A carpenter, a plumber, a truck driver or an engineer working for a mining company can with relative easiness be transferred to the construction sector and that is what we have been doing since the mining boom went burst. Full Stop.
In China what would happen to all those migrant workers working for the clothing, electronics, toy industries, etc in the coastal areas? Well, they would go back to their villages hopefully trying to start a business of their own, but apparently without much hope of success.
Extract using the cut and past technique.
Urban Migration Patterns in China
Migrant workers looking for work A significant portion of China's urban dwellers are migrant workers. A national census published in April last year showed China counted more than 221 million migrants, and a government report released months later predicted that more than 100 million farmers would move to cities by 2020...
Many of the migrants who moved to Shenzhen and other Chinese factory towns to work have pulled up stakes to go back home for good. One destination is Binghuacun (population 968) in the interior province of Guizhou, more than 670 kilometers (416 miles) away.
Mo Wangqing left Binghuacun at 18 to toil in the coastal factories, making everything from electronics components to wall paneling. Now 36, he returned a year ago. Factory jobs on the coast were drying up...
Not everything is likely to go smoothly in this vast reordering of the population. After years of living in cities, returnees don’t have the social networks necessary to succeed in business, says Yang Meng, a 30-year-old migrant from Yibin, Sichuan, working in Shenzhen. “I am already poor, and for people like me who try to start a business in the countryside, the risk is we fail and end up even poorer,” he says. “The countryside can accommodate only some of us. Not all the workers can go home and expect to find a job.”
