Corporate Digital Transformation and High-quality Employment
The digital transformation of enterprises is rapidly and directly impacting labor demand,becoming a new driving force for high-quality employment.Using data from Chinese listed firms from 2007 to 2020,this study examines the effects and mechanisms of digital transformation on firm employment scale and composition.The results indicate that digital transformation significantly increases employment scale and optimizes employment structure.Moreover,there is no direct evidence suggesting a significant substitution effect of digital transformation on low-educated and low-skilled employees.These results are robust to the use of the instrumental variable approach based on the"Broadband China"and a battery of robustness tests.An examination of the mechanisms reveals that digital transformation expands production scale and broadens business scope,leading to increased employment scale.Furthermore,digital transformation boosts firm invest-ment in fixed assets such as machinery and equipment and intensifies research and development activities,thereby increas-ing the demand for highly educated and skilled labor and optimizing employment structure.Further analysis shows that the average employee wage rises while the share of labor costs declines with digital transformation.Our findings provide practical evidence and policy implications for achieving employment expansion and quality improvement in the digital era.
digital transformationemployment scaleemployment structurewage
万方数据
维普
