How do workers perceive working conditions in jobs differently integrated into global markets? Answering this question provides a novel way to examine the link between trade and labour standards. This paper develops hypotheses about worker perceptions, drawing on contrasting mechanisms underpinning theories of ‘trading up,’ which emphasize either the role of private regulation or economic upgrading. It tests these hypotheses using a survey experiment conducted on a sample of 2,500 garment workers in Morocco. In the absence of institutions that monitor labour compliance, workers expected no difference in working conditions between factories that export to high-standards markets and domestically oriented producers. The presence of private monitoring institutions caused expectations of working conditions in export factories to improve, making them comparable to factories monitored by government regulators. These results contribute to our understanding of how global trade shapes worker welfare by highlighting the role of firm-specific institutions and how workers perceive jobs in firms linked in different ways to global markets.