Economic Cycle Fluctuations and Informal Employment in Countries along the “Belt and Road Initiative” — An Empirical Analysis Based on Three-Dimensional Panel Data of 64 Countries from 2010 to 2021

Understanding the interaction between economic cycle fluctuations and labor market dynamics is increasingly important for the sustainable development of digital infrastructure and communication systems supported by advanced electromagnetic technologies. This paper systematically investigates the heterogeneous impacts of economic cycle fluctuations on informal employment across 64 countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from 2010 to 2021, with particular attention to sectoral labor absorption and infrastructure-driven development. An econometric framework based on Okun’s Law is established to examine the dynamic responses of informal employment from sectoral, gender, and age perspectives. The results show that the agricultural sector retains an important role in absorbing informal employment but faces structural transformation pressures. The industrial sector exhibits a distinctive counter-cyclical employment effect, whereas the service sector demonstrates the strongest employment elasticity, especially among youth and female workers. Infrastructure investment under the BRI significantly promotes employment and enhances the service sector’s capacity to absorb female labor. Furthermore, economic cycle fluctuations display nonlinear transmission characteristics: service industries dominate employment creation during expansion periods, while industrial sectors provide counter-cyclical labor absorption during downturns. These findings enrich the theoretical understanding of informal employment dynamics and provide empirical evidence for optimizing infrastructure coordination, including communication and electromagnetic-enabled connectivity systems, to improve regional economic resilience and sustainable development.