An Empirical Study Of The Impact Of Technological Progress On Employment In The Service Sector

With the wave of industrialization 4.0 sweeping the world,the industrial application of advanced technologies is accelerating increasingly,labor costs are rising rapidly,the contradiction between high-skilled and low-skilled labor demand is prominent,and the skill premium is rising.The job market is undergoing dramatic changes.As a laborintensive industrial country,China is exactly facing the same potential crisis of structural unemployment.Therefore,it is of great practical significance to study the impact of technological advances on employment in China.Different types and sources technological progress result in diverse impact on employment in various industries.A large number of studies have shown that the technological advancement of independent innovation can promote mutual skills and promote the development of skill-biased technology,which is conducive to promoting the employment of high-skilled talents and bringing higher wages.Most of the current research focuses on the impact of technological advances on manufacturing employment.However,unlike the previous industrial revolution,the technological innovation is more characterized by the replacement of mental working,besides,the employment effect of technological advancement has expanded to the service sector.As an emerging field of industrial restructuring in China,the modern service industry represented by information,finance and scientific research services has grown stronger and the employment absorption capacity has been further enhanced.Then,what is the level of technological progress and employment status of China's service industry?What is the comparison of employment absorption capacity in various sub-sectors?What impact does independent innovation and technology introduction have on the employment of the industry?Is there a skill-biased technological advancement in the service industry?If so,what effect does it have on the skill employment structure?In the process of economic transformation and the rapid spread of artificial intelligence technology,the research on above issues will have an important enlightening effect on encouraging enterprises to innovate independently,increase human capital investment,attach importance to industrial restructuring,and promote employment.This paper deals with the impact of technological progress on employment and skill employment structure by taking 14 sub-sectors of China's service industry in 2005?2018 as an example.Considering that technological advancement comes from two channels:independent innovation and technology introduction,R&D investment(RD),foreign direct investment(FDI)and foreign technology introduction contract amount(TCI)are used as indicators to measure technological progress.The Cobb-Douglas production function is used to construct a model,and the per capita education level(AH)is introduced as a measure of human capital stock,the number of legal entities as a measure of industry size(IS),capital stock(K),and average wages of sub-industry employees(W),industry added value(Y),interactions between technological progress and human capital stock,and other variables.First,SPSS is used for regression analysis to study the employment elasticity of the service industry as a whole and the sub-sectors in China.Secondly,it measures the structural deviation of the industry and discusses the difference between the overall and internal employment absorption capacity of the service industry.Finally,taking above variables as explanatory variables,the number of employed persons in the sub-industry(L)and the relative demand for skilled labor(LS)are used as explanatory variables to study the impact of technological progress on the employment volume and employment skill structure of the industry,and at the same time verify the service.Whether there is a skill-biased technological advancement in the industry.The results of empirical research show that:(1)Independent innovation technology advancement(RD)and foreign direct investment(FDI)have a restraining effect on the number of employments in the service industry,while foreign technology purchase(TCI)has a pulling effect on it.The interaction between independent innovation(RD),foreign direct investment(FDI)and human capital investment(AH)has contributed to the increase in the number of jobs,while foreign technology purchases(TCI)have the opposite effect.(2)The influence of other intermediate variables and exogenous variables on the number of employments is also different.There is a certain correlation usually between these variables,which has both positive and negative effects on employment.In general,industry added value(Y)has a positive effect on the increase of jobs number.The impact of physical capital stock(K)and industry size(IS)on employment is uncertain.On the one hand,the deepening of material capital,along with further expansion of the industry scale,the substitution effect of capital will be shown to inhibit employment;on the other hand,the input of physical capital requires corresponding cooperation of human labor to exert its value better.At the same time,the increase in labor productivity stimulates enterprises to expand their scale and pursue high returns,thereby promoting employment.(3)Independent innovation technology advancement(RD)has a positive effect on the increase of demand for high-skilled labor,while foreign direct investment(FDI)and foreign technology purchase(TCI)have a certain destructive effect on the optimization of skill employment structure.The complementary transmission mechanism of independent innovation technology(RD)and human capital investment(AH)will make the proportion of high-skilled employment relatively decline,while foreign direct investment(FDI)and foreign technology purchase(TCI)and human capital investment(AH)The role is to increase the demand for highly skilled labor.(4)The influence of other intermediate variables and exogenous variables on the skill employment structure is also diverse.Overall,an increase in human capital investment(AH)will increase the proportion of skilled workers.The expansion of industry size(IS)has a "dual" effect on the skill employment structure,and the overall"extrusion" effect on skilled talents.The increase in average wage(W)of employed people has a certain promotion effect on the employment of high-skilled talents,but the effect is not significant.