How the Development of Informatization Affects the Employment of Labor Force: Empirical Analysis and Mechanism Test

Under the background of the current “digital China” strategy and “employment first” strategy, the optimization of labor resource allocation with informatization as the starting point has been placed high hopes by the academic and research circles and policy departments. The development of information technology not only brings diversified employment positions and working methods, but also brings double influence on China’s labor market, including negative substitution effect and positive creation effect. This paper uses the China provincial panel data from 2010 to 2020 to build the regional informatization development index, and empirically tests the effect and mechanism of information development on the total amount and structure of employment, as well as the spatial spillover effect and regional heterogeneity. The results show that: (1) the development of information technology is conducive to increasing employment, and there is a positive space spillover effect. (2) The development of informatization has a bias towards the employment structure. Under the dual effect of substitution and creation, the development of informatization brings the increase of employment of high-skilled labor force and the decrease of employment of low-skilled labor force. (3) The development of informatization strengthens the promotion of improving output efficiency (deepening effect) and expanding the scale of production (broad effect), and strengthens the polarization trend of high-skill-low-skill structure of labor demand. In addition, the development of information technology has heterogeneity for different industries and different characteristic regions. The above research conclusions can provide targeted theoretical and practical reference for the development of information technology as the new engine of balancing China’s labor supply and demand at the policy level.