Navigating Employment Transformations: Liberalism vs. Statism in the Era of Industry 4.0
Industrial Revolution 4.0, with its emphasis on smart manufacturing, has a profound impact on traditional employment. This study aims to examine changes in firms’ employment decisions in the context of Industry 4.0, shedding light on the conflict between liberalism's market mechanisms and st...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Editura ASE
2025-02-01
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| Series: | Amfiteatru Economic |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.amfiteatrueconomic.ro/temp/Article_3390.pdf |
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| Summary: | Industrial Revolution 4.0, with its emphasis on smart manufacturing, has a profound impact
on traditional employment. This study aims to examine changes in firms’ employment
decisions in the context of Industry 4.0, shedding light on the conflict between liberalism's
market mechanisms and statism's government interventions. Given China’s status as the
world’s largest emerging market, its unique politico economic structure and the global
technological transformation of Industry 4.0 jointly shape a dynamic labor market that
requires a balance between government intervention and market forces. Using a sample of
publicly listed Chinese companies from 2007 to 2022, we employ a difference-indifferences (DID) approach and ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation to empirically
investigate changes in firms’ labor demand under Industry 4.0. To ensure robustness, we
perform several other analyses, including parallel trend tests and placebo tests. Our results
indicate that Industry 4.0 reduces the overall labor demand of firms, characterized by a
decrease in low-skilled workers and an increase in high-skilled workers. Furthermore, a
triple difference model reveals that market forces exacerbate the negative employment
effects of Industry 4.0, whereas government interventions mitigate these effects to some
extent. Our findings offer a new perspective on how Industry 4.0 influences the
employment market within the frameworks of statism and liberalism. It also proposes a
potential resolution to the conflict between liberalism and statism in the context of Industry
4.0, while providing valuable insight into corporate employment decisions. |
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| ISSN: | 1582-9146 2247-9104 |