Study On The Measurement Of Chinese Participation In Global Value Chains And Its Impact On The Number Of Chinese Employees

With the rapid development of international transportation and the popularity of the Internet in the world,the economic and trade ties between countries in the world have become increasingly closer.The international division of production has become increasingly common,and "national manufacturing" has gradually shifted to "manufacturing in the world," and global value chains(GVCs)have become an important feature of world economic development.Since the reform and opening up,China’s connection with the international market has become increasingly close.Relying on the comparative advantage of low labor costs,China has joined the division of labor system of the global value chain and quickly became a “world factory”.By studying the degree of participation of a country in global value chains,value added and changes in the efficiency of resources can be derived,which will be helpful to provide trade policies.Under the global value chain division system,the advantages of the international division of labor are refined to all aspects of product production.Under this model,there will inevitably be a transfer of production links between countries,which will promote the integration of production with local labor resources and affect the number of employees of countries participating in global value chains.Based on previous research,this paper employs revised global value chain indicators of WWYZ(2017a,2017b),including participation extent,production chain length,position indices,to measure China’s participation in the global value chains,and to examine whether China’s participation in the global value chains will have a significant impact on employment numbers from different dimensions.The results are as follows:The degree of participation in global value chains based on forward and backward linkages in China has shown a trend of rising first,then falling,then gradually increasing,and finally becoming stable.Pure domestic production activities still account for a major part of production activities,but their importance has decreased,and the proportion of GVC production activities in GDP has increased.As for the length of GVC production chain,the length of GVC domestic and international production chain based on forward linkage has increased,but most of the sub-industry’s length of domestic production chain are longer than the international production chain,the low-tech industry has a longer length of GVC domestic production chain.The position index of the global value chain has generally risen,and this trend has become more apparent in the service industry,but it has been below the level of one.Most manufacturing industries are downstream industries in the global value chain,and service industries are mostly upstream industries.Comparing China’s participation in the global value chain with the major countries in the world,we can see that China’s participation in the forward linkages is lower than that of Germany,which is a manufacturing-power country,and Russia,which is abundant with natural resources,but higher than that of Japan,the United States,India,and Brazil.The degree of participation based on backward linkage is at a high level.The position index is relatively close to India,at a relatively low level,and there is still a large gap compared with other five countries.The results of the study also indicate that China’s participation in the division of global value chains will have a significant impact on the number of employees in the country.The position index of global value chain and the degree of participation based on backward linkage will have a significant inhibitory effect on the number of Chinese employment,while the participation based on forward linkage,the length of GVC international production chain and the shallow GVC will increase the number of jobs in China;The increase in the position index of the global value chain in the manufacturing and high-tech industries,and the increase in the length of the GVC international production chain in the service industry and high-tech industries will have a stronger driving effect on employment.At the same time,by using cross-border once GVC activities,the increased number of jobs in high-tech industry is higher than that in the low-tech sector.Finally,according to the measurement and empirical analysis of China’s participation in global value chains,this paper presents corresponding policy recommendations.