Does Enterprise Digital Transformation Lead To Labor Polarization In Employment?

Employment has always been a major people’s livelihood issue,and the government and society attach great importance to it.In the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19 th Central Committee of the CPC,the government stressed that "we should continue to adhere to the principle of stabilizing employment and creating employment,give top priority to solving structural employment problems,actively guide and encourage entrepreneurship to drive employment,and achieve better employment." In the new stage of high-quality development of China,how to make better use of emerging technologies to achieve high-quality employment and increase the share of labor income in national income,Is the key to promoting common prosperity.Digital technology has changed the business process of enterprises,reduced the production and operation costs of enterprises,reshaped the organizational structure of enterprises,changed the business model of enterprises,and brought huge opportunities to enterprises.However,digital technology is also a double-edged sword.Every industrial revolution inevitably discusses the relationship between new technology and employment.With the popularity and rapid development of digital technology in China,the impact of digital technology on labor employment is becoming more complex and strong,and people are increasingly worried about whether digital technology poses a threat to their work.Based on the characteristics of digital technology and its heterogeneous impact on employment,this thesis objectively evaluates the impact of enterprise digital transformation on the employment structure of Chinese listed companies theoretically and empirically,and confirms the employment polarization effect of digital technology at the enterprise level.Firstly,from the theoretical level,digital technology mainly affects the employment structure of labor force through three ways: complementation effect,substitution effect and total factor productivity effect.First,the process of digital transformation of enterprises will inevitably lead to the upgrading of production technology.Due to the complementarity of technology and skills,digital technology can only play a powerful role when combined with highly skilled labor force,which will inevitably increase the demand for highly skilled labor force.Second,based on the theory of task model,digital technology is more likely to replace the labor force engaged in routine operational tasks.Therefore,in the process of digital transformation,enterprises will inevitably have a substitution effect on part of middle-skilled labor force engaged in routine operational tasks and reduce the demand for middle-skilled labor force.Third,the productivity effect brought by enterprise digital transformation will directly lead to the increase of enterprise product demand,which will directly lead to the expansion of production scale,thus increasing the demand for low-skilled labor for unconventional tasks.On the basis of theoretical analysis,this thesis empirically analyzes the influence of enterprise digital transformation on labor employment structure by using two-way fixed effect model,and introduces instrumental variables,DID model reestimation and other methods to alleviate the endogenous problem to a certain extent.Subsequently,this thesis also makes a series of robustness tests,such as changing the measurement methods of core explanatory variables and explained variables,changing the clustering level of standard errors,adding more fixed effects,deleting relevant samples,etc.A series of robustness tests are carried out to ensure the robustness of the baseline regression.Furthermore,through mechanism analysis,this thesis verifies the intermediate channels through which enterprises’ digital transformation affects employment polarization.Finally,this thesis analyzes the heterogeneity of employment polarization effect of enterprise digital transformation,including enterprise ownership heterogeneity,industry heterogeneity and time heterogeneity.Through systematic empirical analysis,this thesis finds that the digital transformation of enterprises leads to the phenomenon of employment polarization.After alleviating the endogeneity problem and conducting a series of robust analysis,the final conclusion is still reliable.Through mechanism analysis,we find that digital technology can improve the demand for highly skilled labor force by promoting the upgrading of production technology of enterprises.Reducing the demand for middle-skilled labor through substitution effects.Increasing the demand for low-skilled labor through productivity effects.The substitution effect of digital technology on middle-skilled labor force is found in highly conventional enterprises,while there is no substitution effect of digital technology on middle-skilled labor force in low-conventional enterprises.During the sample period,there are more obvious substitution effects and employment polarization in the enterprises with reduced routine,while there is no employment polarization in the enterprises with increased routine.In addition,the heterogeneity results show that the employment polarization effect of enterprise digital transformation is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises,manufacturing industry and 2015—2018.The conclusions of this thesis provide rich empirical evidence for accelerating enterprise digital transformation and explaining labor market polarization.Through theoretical analysis and empirical results,this thesis puts forward a series of effective countermeasures and suggestions: strengthen the policy orientation,accelerate the improvement of modern digital infrastructure,to provide a solid foundation for the development of new business forms;Accelerate enterprise digital technology innovation and application,improve the efficiency of small and medium enterprises;Strengthen crisis warning and bottom protection to mitigate the negative impact of modern digital development on employment;Perfect human resource information management,establish a practical talent training and evaluation mechanism;Emphasis should be placed on the training of low-and medium-skilled labor force to enhance their employability and promote economic development.In the post-epidemic era,it is necessary to strengthen personnel training and improve the employment supply structure to meet the needs of social development.It is also necessary to attach importance to creating a gradient level of talents to meet the needs of different positions and maximize the distribution of human resources among regions and enterprises.In the process of regional development,we should promote the reasonable circulation of high-quality talents and the balanced distribution of space in order to achieve sustainable economic development.