This paper provides both a theoretical and an empirical framework for addressing the question of whether encouraging more firms to engage in international trade may enhance urban employment quality．Theoretically, the concept of market crowding is introduced and the mechanism by which participation in international trade influences the labor market quality is outlined．Empirically, the staggered DID model is applied to estimate the impact of the establishment of China’scross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones as a quasi-natural experiment．Results show that even though the number of firms engaged in international trade expanded urban employment, the market crowding effect does not result in significant improvement in the average wage of urban on-the-job workers, and the industrial structure of employment is not optimized．This finding suggests that, in the long run, the expansion of the scale of trade participants cannot effectively improve the quality of employment and improving employment quality should not be fully expected from firms’international commerce．In order to maintain firms’continued ability to create jobs and offer work benefits, it is necessary not only to encourage firms’participation in international trade, but also to establish an effective mechanism for firms to exit the global market．