Institute of Economics, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Shanghai, China.
PLoS One. 2024 Sep 27;19(9):e0308663. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0308663. eCollection 2024.
Public sector employment in China has exhibited pronounced non-cyclical characteristics, with a recruiting scale and wage level showing limited responsiveness to economic fluctuations. The allure of civil service jobs in China has seen a significant resurgence post-COVID-19, with an observable increase in demand among educated job seekers for stable government positions amid growing economic uncertainties. This study investigates the implications of public sector employment rigidity on macroeconomic stability using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model integrated with search and matching (S&M) theory. Simulations incorporating alternative government job policies reveal that non-cyclical public employment exacerbates macroeconomic cyclical fluctuations. The low elasticity of public sector wages with respect to corporate wages fosters stable expectations among workers regarding the future value of government jobs, increasing the perceived value of the current state of unemployment. This leads job seekers to voluntarily remain unemployed, reducing labor supply to firms. Meantime, it preserves workers' bargaining power with firms, reinforcing wage stickiness and undermining the stabilizing role of price adjustments in employment. Hypothetical scenario analyses indicate that adopting a pro-cyclical wage policy for the public sector can mitigate the obstacles of wage cuts for firms, stimulate the creation of new jobs during economic downturns, and consequently reduce the magnitude and duration of rising unemployment rates. In contrast, maintaining a non-cyclical public sector wage may not prevent a continuous rise in unemployment or a worsening economic situation, even with expanded sector recruitment. This finding holds significant relevance in the context of the post-COVID era characterized by an economic slump and employment tension, providing theoretical support for establishing a transparent and flexible wage adjustment mechanism in the public sector that is linked to market conditions.
中国的公共部门就业具有明显的非周期性特征，其招聘规模和工资水平对经济波动的反应有限。在中国，新冠疫情后，公务员职位的吸引力显著回升，在经济不确定性增加的情况下，受过教育的求职者对稳定的政府职位的需求明显增加。本研究使用动态随机一般均衡（DSGE）模型与搜索和匹配（S＆M）理论相结合，考察了公共部门就业刚性对宏观经济稳定的影响。模拟包含替代政府工作政策的结果表明，非周期性公共就业会加剧宏观经济周期性波动。公共部门工资相对于企业工资的低弹性会促使工人对政府工作的未来价值形成稳定预期，从而增加失业现状的价值感知。这导致求职者自愿失业，减少了企业的劳动力供给。同时，它保护了工人与企业的谈判能力，强化了工资粘性，破坏了价格调整在就业中的稳定作用。假设情景分析表明，对公共部门实行顺周期工资政策可以减轻企业减薪的障碍，在经济衰退期间创造新的就业机会，从而降低失业率上升的幅度和持续时间。相比之下，即使扩大部门招聘，维持非周期性的公共部门工资可能无法防止失业率持续上升或经济状况恶化。这一发现在后疫情时代具有重要意义，该时代经济衰退和就业紧张，为建立与市场条件挂钩的公共部门透明和灵活的工资调整机制提供了理论支持。
