服务业发展“抢夺”了制造业技能吗?——来自中国微观层面的经验证据

Does Service Industry“Scramble”Manufacturing Industry’s Skilled Labor?Evidence from Chinese Firm-level Data

文章基于服务产品跨地域运送更加便利的特性,重新构建了城市可利用服务业发展指标,并利用经济普查数据库中技能细分劳动力信息,考察了服务业发展对制造业企业技能结构的影响,提出并证明了服务业发展所产生的“分工效应”和“竞争效应”,从生活品质的角度进一步证明了“竞争效应”的内在逻辑,并提出克服“竞争效应”的可行方案。研究发现,对于制造业服务化程度越高的行业中的企业,服务业发展对其技能结构的负面影响越强。这一负面影响既表现在制造业企业通过引入专业中间服务品,促使分工深化,使得技能劳动力从制造业自然流出,即服务业发展的“分工效应”;也表现在服务业发展与制造业在劳动力市场上形成人才竞争,带来制造业企业技能劳动力的非自愿短缺,即服务业发展的“竞争效应”。进一步的研究表明,生活品质对技能劳动力就业有显著影响,城市公共服务和生活服务供给水平的提升有助于缓解服务业发展的“竞争效应”。文章的研究结论意味着推动服务业和制造业的融合发展,促进专业服务产品进入制造业产品分工是解决我国劳动力市场供需结构性不匹配,防范潜在的“产业空心化”问题的关键举措;同时在制造业转型升级关键期,政府通过公共产品提供和基础设施配套是帮助制造业企业吸引技能劳动力,保持竞争力的可行方案。

Since the beginning of the 21st century,aging problem in China has gradually become more prominent,and the demographic dividend is fading.Enhancing human capital for higher labor productivity to respond to labor supply shortages has been proposed by economists.Universities in China have begun to expand enrollment since 2000,and the supply of skilled labor has expanded significantly.However,the phenomena of“difficulty in recruiting manufacturing firms”and“difficulty in finding jobs for college students”have existed for a long time,which means China’s efforts in human capital investment have not been effectively absorbed by the manufacturing industry.Although the“Baumol-Fuchs hypothesis”indicates that the development of service industry may lead to the outflow of labor from the manufacturing industry,we cannot simply conclude that service industry may“scramble”the skilled labor of manufacturing industry as service industry has become more embedded in manufacturing industry.It is significant to clarify how the development of service industry influences the skill structure of manufacturing industry for better understanding of China’s labor market and seeking a development path of integration between the development of service industry and the upgrading of manufacturing industry.Firstly,this paper constructs a new service index at city-level by incorporating inter-city distance based on existing research.Secondly,empirical study shows that the development of service industry has a stronger negative impact on the firm’s skill structure if it belongs to the industry that demands more service inputs.On the one hand,this negative impact performs in the“Division Effect”,i.e.as manufacturing industry requires more service input and the division of labor goes deepening,the development of service industry promotes the natural outflow of skilled labor from manufacturing industry;On the other hand,competition in the labor market has caused an involuntary shortage of skilled labor in manufacturing firms,i.e.the“Competition Effect”.Further research also shows that the quality of life has a significant impact on the employment,and the provision of public services and life services helps to alleviate the“Competition Effect”.This paper tries to contribute to the literature as follows:Firstly,to our knowledge,this is the first attempt to identify the causal effect of the development of service industry on the skill structure of manufacturing industry,which provides new evidence and perspectives on the inter-industry labor transfer for the“Baumol-Fuchs hypothesis”and extends the research of relationship between manufacturing industry and service industry.Secondly,this paper constructs a new city service development index,which not only helps to accurately measure the availability of intermediate service inputs by firms in cities,but also is more consistent with the reality of firms’cross-regional choice of intermediate services.Finally,this paper discusses in details how the government can alleviate the negative effect of the“Competition Effect”through the geographical layout and infrastructure support of manufacturing industries.This not only provides feasible solutions to maintain the competitiveness of manufacturing industry to respond to rising labor cost,but also has a conductive effect on the transformation and upgrading strategies of manufacturing industry in the background of the“service-oriented economy”,and has implication in policy-making for local governments to attract talents.