The spatial structure of labour force employment in China’s industries: Measurement and extraction

With the continuous refinement and cross-integration of China’s industrial division of labour, analysis of the dynamic change in the spatial structure of labour force employment provides important insights into the spatial development pattern and industrial layout of China’s economy. In this paper, first, the scale and direction of labour flow between industries are measured based on input–output tables for 2007–2017. Second, a labour employment space network of China’s industries is constructed using social network analysis. Finally, the characteristics of the spatial structure of China’s labour force employment are extracted based on the spatial structure dimensions of points, lines, and networks. The results show that the employment effect on the labour force varies significantly according to diverse industry characteristics. In China, labour- and technology-intensive industries have always been the main absorption sites for labour force employment. As the labour force reservoir effect increases, the attractiveness of capital-intensive industries to the labour force gradually strengthens. Regarding the industrial chain, industry agglomeration within a sector has been shown in the employment space of China’s labour force. In particular, the service sector has already been stratified, and the hierarchy in the labour force employment structure is obvious. The networking of employment space indicates that the triangular mode structure with transitivity and interaction promotes the evolution of China’s labour employment space and that the trend of a multi-direction cycle network has gradually developed. In summary, the core–periphery heterogeneity spatial structure of the overall distribution of China’s labour employment has gradually been strengthened by the properties of agglomeration, hierarchy, and networks.