Resilience or Mirage? Deconstructing the Economic Recovery and Labor Market Structural Lag in Macao’s Tourism Sector

This study investigates the deep-seated impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Macao, a mono-economy extremely dependent on the single factor of “tourism mobility”. We investigate a counter-intuitive phenomenon observed during the 2020–2022 shock: the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) declined significantly, suggesting “apparent diversification”. Using counterfactual simulations and a Two-Way Fixed Effects (TWFE) model, we quantitatively deconstruct this “resilience illusion”. The results confirm that the decline in the HHI was driven entirely by the “denominator effect” triggered by the collapse of the dominant industry’s (gaming) GVA; if the impact of this recession is excluded, the Counterfactual HHI was even higher than pre-pandemic levels, indicating that the structure did not undergo substantive optimization. Furthermore, inferential statistical tests confirmed the existence of significant “structural lag” in the labor market. This study further reveals a dual divergence mechanism based on “skill specificity”: in sectors with high skill universality (e.g., transport and catering), a structural shift toward “workforce casualization” occurred, manifested by a significant decline in the full-time ratio; conversely, in sectors with strong skill specificity (e.g., gaming and hospitality), firms tended toward “labor hoarding”. This study exposes the macro-indicator trap faced by tourism mono-economies under extreme shocks and provides new micro-evidence for understanding the heterogeneous scars in the service labor market.