High-value and fresh produce exports from developing countries have expanded rapidly since the turn of the millennium. In particular, exports of horticultural produce grew exponentially in all developing regions-from less than 5 billion USD in 2000 to 16 billion USD in 2015 in Africa, from slightly over 10 billion to almost 40 billion USD in Latin America, and from about 15 billion to 66 billion USD in developing Asia. Horticultural export expansion has been associated with a process of modernization of food value chains and with agro-industrialization, and with important consequences for rural labor market dynamics and rural development. In this paper we analyze how high-value export growth and global food value chains contribute to rural labor market dynamics and rural development. We put forward a dual economy framework to better understand the labor market and development implications of high-value export expansion and associated agro-industrialization. We rely on a review of the literature and on empirical evidence from three original case-studies of particularly dynamic high-value export sectors: the fruit and vegetable export chain in Senegal, the pineapple export chain in Ghana and the asparagus export chain in Peru. We match the evidence from these case-studies with insights from a dual economy framework to discuss how horticultural export expansion contributes to creating more and better jobs for rapid poverty reduction and rural development. We describe worldwide trends in horticultural export growth and value chain development; employment and wage dynamics in horticultural export regions; and the direct and indirect development effects of these dynamics. Finally, we elaborate on some future perspectives about employment in global value chains, agro-industrialization and labor market dynamics.