Can water pollution control influence employment adjustment in enterprises?

Under the background of increasing water pollution, the achievement of a harmonious development of human and water systems has become increasingly important to build an ecological civilization and achieve high-quality economic development. On this basis, this paper takes Chinese A-share listed companies as the research object, and examines whether environmental regulation of water resources can influence employment decisions of enterprises. The results showed that the environmental regulation of water resources reduced the number of workers absorbed by enterprises characterized by high pollution and water consumption. Mandatory innovation pressures imposed on high-pressure group by the environmental regulation of water resources prompted these industries to recruit more high-tech workers; while those industries that were not subjected to mandatory innovation pressures (i.e., the medium-pressure group) did not show an evident increase in demand for high-tech workers. The results of further analyses showed that, although the employment decisions of these two groups of enterprises differed, their enterprise values clearly improved after the implementation of this policy. This study provides important policy insights on how to achieve the protection of water resources and the optimization of the enterprise employment structure under the background of environmental regulation of water resources.