劳动力市场结构变迁、工作任务与技能需求

Structural Changes in Labor Market,Job Tasks and Skill Demand

劳动力市场的结构性变化正在引起越来越多的关注。中国劳动力市场的变化既有符合一般规律的变动趋势,也存在一些独特因素使得其变化轨迹与众不同。利用工作任务法观察劳动力市场的结构变迁,是解释变化路径的有效工具。本文利用新近收集的中国城市劳动力调查数据,描绘了近年来中国劳动力市场工作任务和技能需求的变化趋势,发现即便在控制受教育水平后,工作任务的配置仍会对劳动力市场回报产生显著影响。此外,不同工作任务的回报有明显的分化。因此,构建与技能需求相适应的人力资本积累体系非常重要。

The structural changes in labor markets have drawn a lot of attention in recent literatures. The changes taking place in the Chinese labor market share some common trends with those described in previous literatures, while some features driven by unique factors differ the Chinese case from others. Using job task approach that is believed to be a useful tool to understand the labor market changes, as well as China Urban Labor Survey data that has been collected recently, this paper describes the changing pattern of task assignments and skill demands. We also find that, even after controlling for education, the returns to skills are still substantial although the returns diversify among tasks. This implies that it is very important to reform the human capital accumulation system in accordance with the skill demand.