Structural Transformation of China's Occupational Skills:A Task-based Approach
Recent advancements in artificial intelligence technologies,such as industrial robots and large language models,are significantly reshaping the demand for certain skills in the labor market.These technologies tend to replace tasks that are highly repetitive and easily coded.For example,industrial robots are progressively replacing routine manual tasks,while large language models are increasingly adept at automating abstract textual tasks that involve recognizing patterns and applying rules.The impacts of these emerging technologies on the labor market are closely connected to the specific skills required in various occupations.However,there is a notable deficiency in the systematic measurement of occupational skill attributes in China.Traditional occupational classifications-such as technicians,clerical staff,service workers,and production staff-fail to distinguish the nuanced skill attributes inherent to each occupation.Other indirect methods to define occupational skills,such as using education level and income,are inadequate as they reflect human capital or the price of labor rather than the specific skills required by the occupations themselves.Consequently,these indirect indicators do not accurately capture the full spectrum of skill attributes of different occupations,falling short of the needs of contemporary academic research and practical application.To better understand employment issues in China,it is essential to objectively assess the essence and skill attributes of Chinese occupations.This assessment is crucial for evaluating the direction and extent of changes in occupational skills and for analyzing their interrelation with economic development.To bridge this gap,the paper constructs an index system to objectively and systematically measure the skill attributes of Chinese occupations,and analyzes the characteristics and trends of skills in the labor market.Specifically,we extract information regarding the fundamental functions and job content of 1,838 occupations from the Occupational Classification Dictionary of the People's Republic of China using natural language processing methods.We then cross-reference these descriptions with occupation function categories found inthe Thesaurus of Modern Chinese,creating indexes for abstract,routine,and social skills for each occupation.By analyzing census data from 1990 to 2015,we delineate trends in occupational skills in the labor market,as well as the dynamics of skills across demographic characteristics and regions.We further investigate the relationship between economic development and skill distribution.The findings indicate that from 1990 to 2015,there was an upward trend in employment shares for occupations requiring higher levels of abstract and social skills,particularly for composite jobs requiring both types of skills.Furthermore,significant disparities in occupational skills exist across different educational levels,ages,birth cohorts,and types of household registration(hukou).Low-educated workers and rural migrants are more likely to engage in occupations demanding lower abstract and social skills but higher routine skills.Additionally,workers of the same age or from the same birth cohort tend to exhibit similar occupational skill characteristics.The study also identifies a U-shaped relationship between economic development and employment shares in abstract and social jobs,while employment shares of routine jobs demonstrate an inverted U-shaped pattern with economic development.This suggests that with initial economic growth,the proportion of abstract and social jobs decreases in favor of routine jobs until surpassing a critical GDP threshold.This paper contributes to the literature in the following ways.We establish a solid framework for classifying occupational skills and labor skills through an objective skill index based on authoritative Chinese dictionaries.In addition,we illuminate the evolution of China's skill structure over recent decades and highlight variations in skill dynamics across different demographic groups and regions,providing valuable empirical insights and theoretical underpinnings crucial for formulating high-quality employment-first strategies in China.
Occupational SkillTask ContentEmployment StructureEconomic Development