Abstract: Short-term macro-environmental factors may have an important impact on an individual's long-term career development. However, at present, the impact of economic downturn on individual job performance is still poorly understood. According to the imprinting theory, this paper uses the human resources file data of a large high-tech enterprise in China for the period 2014—2018, and explores the continuous impact of the economic downturn on the follow-up job performance of individuals when they graduate. The study finds that employees who experienced economic downturn generally have better follow-up performance than employees who did not experience economic downturn upon graduation. The boundary effect test shows that the effect is more pronounced when employees graduate from prestigious schools and the performance of team colleagues is better, but decreases as their career extends. Further studies find that: (1) the greater extent and depth of economic downturn new employees suffer upon graduation, the more positive impact the downturn has on their job performance; and (2) those who suffer an economic downturn upon graduation will be more active in seeking job training in the subsequent stages of their career.

Key words: economic downturn, job performance, imprint theory, colleague performance, training seeking