Xu Gan, Qiu Yue, Qi Jingyu
School of Finance, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, 100070, China.
School of Labor Economics, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, 100070, China.
Heliyon. 2024 Jun 29;10(13):e33893. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e33893. eCollection 2024 Jul 15.
The widespread application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has triggered a significant transformation in the economic structure and has brought profound changes to human society. As China promotes the digital transformation of industries, understanding how the investment in AI by small and micro enterprises (SMEs) affects labor demand, which is inextricably linked to "stable employment", becomes an important question. This paper uses special data from 127 SMEs in 14 provinces from 2016 to 2020 and employs a two-way fixed effects model to study the impact of AI inputs on enterprises' labor demand. The empirical results show that the impact of AI inputs on the labor demand of SMEs is not significant overall, but shows a significant negative effect in non-state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, and high-tech enterprises. There is a significant difference in the impact of AI inputs on the labor demand of different industries, with only the wholesale and retail industry demonstrating a significant positive impact. From the results of mechanism analysis, the substitution effect and creation effect of AI inputs on labor demand coexist, and in general, these two effects cancel each other out. However, the substitution effect dominates in some types of enterprises and industries. Finally, this paper discusses the government and enterprise coping strategies for the employment impact of AI applications based on empirical evidence and research results. This paper not only theoretically demonstrates that the impact of AI investment on firms' labor demand is uncertain, but also empirically demonstrates that Chinese firms' AI investment does not significantly affect firms' overall labor demand. This facilitates the government and enterprises to formulate strategies that can enhance the level of enterprise intelligence without impacting the labor market.
人工智能（AI）技术的广泛应用引发了经济结构的重大变革，并给人类社会带来了深刻变化。随着中国推动产业数字化转型，了解小微企业对人工智能的投资如何影响与“稳定就业”紧密相关的劳动力需求，成为一个重要问题。本文使用2016年至2020年来自14个省份127家小微企业的专项数据，并采用双向固定效应模型研究人工智能投入对企业劳动力需求的影响。实证结果表明，人工智能投入对小微企业劳动力需求的总体影响并不显著，但在非国有企业、民营企业和高科技企业中呈现出显著的负向影响。人工智能投入对不同行业劳动力需求的影响存在显著差异，只有批发和零售业表现出显著的正向影响。从机制分析结果来看，人工智能投入对劳动力需求的替代效应和创造效应并存，总体而言，这两种效应相互抵消。然而，在某些类型的企业和行业中，替代效应占主导地位。最后，本文基于实证证据和研究结果，探讨了政府和企业应对人工智能应用就业影响的策略。本文不仅从理论上证明了人工智能投资对企业劳动力需求的影响具有不确定性，还通过实证证明了中国企业的人工智能投资对企业总体劳动力需求没有显著影响。这有助于政府和企业制定既能提高企业智能化水平又不影响劳动力市场的策略。
