Multi-Dimensional Evaluation and Promotion Path of High-Quality Employment in China’s Environmental Protection Industry Under the “Dual-Carbon” Goals

The environmental protection industry is central to China’s green transition and essential for achieving the “Dual Carbon” goals. Through the policy logic of expected environmental governance, high-quality employment in this sector serves as a demonstrative model for overall employment changes across society and plays a key role in coordinating the achievement of both environmental and economic objectives. This study proposes a comprehensive evaluation framework for assessing high-quality employment in the environmental protection industry. Using the entropy method, Moran’s Index, and spatial econometric models, we analyze data from 31 Chinese provinces over the period from 2011 to 2022. The results show a steady improvement in employment quality within the industry, although significant regional disparities persist, with eastern coastal provinces outperforming the western regions. Spatial autocorrelation analysis further reveals a positive spatial relationship in high-quality employment levels, indicating that neighboring provinces tend to exhibit similar employment quality. Additionally, factors such as economic development, fixed asset investment, government support, and R&D investment were found to significantly influence employment quality in the sector. These findings enrich the research on high-quality employment in specific industry sectors and improve the theoretical system of research on social employment quality under the “Dual-Carbon” policy.