海外之声 | 王恩正：对外直接投资对国内就业影响几何（中英双语）

观点速递

本文作者王恩正（Whang Un Jung），韩国国际经济政策研究院（KIEP）区域贸易协定小组研究员。英文原文刊载于KIEP Opinions (March 2017)。

近几十年，韩国跨国企业的发展引起了民众对于国内失业率升高的担忧，而相关的研究结果却很难统一。作者认为，对外直接投资（OFDI）对国内就业的影响，取决于其投资类型、转移出去的生产阶段和转移的劳工的就业状况。有研究发现虽然OFDI对短期劳工的整体就业有促进作用，但并不影响国内长期劳工的整体就业。虽然几乎没有证据能证明OFDI对整体国内就业的影响，尤其对于长期劳工的影响，但OFDI对就业确有异质性影响，该影响取决于FDI类型、劳工技术水平及就业状况。

中文译文如下：

对外直接投资对国内就业的异质性影响

作者：王恩正（Whang Un Jung）

翻译：李时良

审校：肖柏高

近几十年，跨国企业（MNEs）一直通过对外直接投资（OFDI）寻求更好的商机，这大大提高了企业生产效率及海外销量。然而，OFDI的增加引起了社会的广泛关注，民众们担忧国内失业率会升高，因为OFDI将国内一些生产活动转移至国外附属公司，一些国内员工将会因此被国外劳动力替代。工作替代越来越被人们所担忧，于是一些研究者开始分析OFDI和其来源国就业之间的关系。遗憾的是，这些研究结果各异、充满矛盾，并且关于OFDI对就业影响的许多问题仍然悬而未决。在资金来源国，OFDI对就业影响取决于国外投资类型（例如，效率寻求型、市场寻求型、出口平台寻求型及技术寻求型）、劳动力技术水平（低、中、高技术水平）以及就业状况（短期或长期）。

众所周知，OFDI对国内就业有两方面相反的影响：规模效应（scale effect）和替代效应（substitution effect）。规模效应能增加市场准入（水平直接投资，horizontal FDI）并提高各国间资源配置效率（垂直直接投资，vertical FDI），从而促进国内就业。而由于替代效应，OFDI也可对国内就业产生消极影响，这是因为，国内一部分曾就职于跨国公司母公司的员工被国外劳动力替代。OFDI对国内就业的总影响模棱两可，取决于OFDI是水平型还是垂直型的，还与国外投资类型紧密相关。

还有一个决定OFDI对就业影响的重要因素，即转移到国外的某些生产阶段或生产项目的劳动力技能水平（或者职业类型）。更具体地说，若某生产阶段转移到国外，负责该生产阶段任务的劳动力需求将下降。例如，如果跨国企业将一部分非技术劳工为主的生产阶段迁至国外，国内对于非技术劳工的需求将下降。同时，若国内留下的生产阶段是以技术密集型的，那么对技术劳动力的需求将增加。

此外，另一个决定OFDI对国内就业影响的重要因素是劳工的就业状况，即短期或长期。进行FDI的公司往往倾向于雇佣短期工，以规避海外投资的不确定风险。此种倾向还有另外一个原因，即在做出FDI决定后，跨国企业在摩擦性劳动力市场中很难立即找到具备合适资格的劳工。因此，在找到合格的长期工之前，他们更倾向于雇佣短期工。在这种背景下，OFDI对短期就业的影响可能取决于FDI来源国的劳动力市场灵活度。事实上，韩国劳动力市场有着严重刚性。根据经合组织数据，同经合组织成员国家平均水平相比，韩国有着更为严格的就业保护政策。这解释了韩国对短期工的高需求可能与OFDI紧密相关。

最近一项KIEP的研究使用了来自韩国83个行业，07至15年的数据，将OFDI对国内就业的影响因素分解为三类，即OFDI类型、劳工技能水平以及就业状况。该研究的主要发现是，虽然OFDI对短期劳工的整体就业有促进作用，但并不影响国内长期劳工的整体就业。这些结果或许表明，至少在韩国，若FDI的前景不明时，采取FDI的跨国企业更倾向于雇佣短期工。由于韩国劳动力市场刚性较大，这些结果显得比较合理，且不辨自明。关于OFDI对短期劳工需求的影响（即各组中短期劳工/长期劳工的就业比例），效率寻求型FDI只增加中等技术型实验组的短期劳工需求，而其他技术型实验组（包括低技术和高技术）受OFDI影响不明显。该结果表明，对于选择效率寻求型FDI的公司，希望通过低要素成本提高生产效率，更倾向雇佣中等技术水平的短期劳工，而非长期劳工。

虽然几乎没有证据能证明OFDI对整体国内就业的影响，尤其对于长期劳工的影响，但OFDI对就业确有异质性影响，该影响取决于FDI类型、劳工技术水平及就业状况。例如，韩国跨国企业最常采用的OFDI——市场寻求型FDI就对国内就业没有影响，而如果不考虑就业状况，效率寻求型和出口平台寻求型FDI就对就业有促进作用。这些结论都说明，要分析OFDI同其母国国内就业的关系，必须考虑到OFDI对就业影响的异质性。

由于这些研究结果依据的行业数据来源不仅包括跨国企业，还包括其他相关企业如跨国企业的分包公司或国内供应商，在解读这些结果时须谨慎考虑；这些结果反映的是OFDI在行业层面的综合影响，因此不能用于解释进行海外投资的公司层面的就业变化。虽然行业层面数据有其优势，公司层面的数据也能够用来分析政策的影响，提供有关OFDI和就业之间关系的基础解释及信息。

英文原文如下：

The Heterogeneous Effects of Outward FDI on Domestic Employment

by WHANG Un Jung

Over the past few decades, for multi-national enterprises (MNEs), the strategy of using outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) for seeking better business opportunities has played an important role in increasing their production efficiency and overseas sales. Nevertheless, an in-crease in OFDI has raised widespread public concerns about the possibility of domestic job losses because OFDI could transfer certain domes-tic production activities to foreign affiliates, so that some domestic workers are replaced with foreign labor. With rising concerns over job displacement, a number of researchers have examined a relationship between OFDI and employment of a source country. Unfortunately, these studies have produced mixed results and there still remain many controversies and unanswered questions regarding the employment effect of OFDI. It turns out that the employment effect of OFDI in a source country depends on the type of overseas investment (for example, efficiency-seeking, market-seeking, export-platform-seeking, technology-seeking), workers' skill level (low-, medium- or high-skilled) and employment status (permanent or temporary).

As is well known, OFDI has two opposite effects on domestic employment: scale effect versus substitution effect. Scale effect is associated with an increase in domestic employment as a result of improving market access (horizontal FDI) and efficient resource allocation (vertical FDI) across multiple nations. OFDI can have a negative effect on domestic employment, through substitution effect, since some domestic workers previously employed by the MNEs' parent firms are replaced by foreign labor. The overall effect of OFDI on domestic employment is ambiguous and varies depending on whether the OFDI is horizontal or vertical, which is closely linked to the types of overseas investment.

Another important factor that determines the employment effect of OFDI is workers' skill level (or occupation) in that particular stages or tasks of production are outsourced abroad. To be more specific, the demand for domestic labor forces, who were previously employed in a certain task of production stages that is being moved overseas, will decrease. The domestic demand for unskilled labor, for instance, might decrease when MNEs relocate a certain stage of production abroad that is using unskilled labor more intensively. Meanwhile, the relative demand for skilled labor will increase if the remaining stages of production, which stay at home, are relatively skill intensive.

Another important factor in determining the effect of OFDI on domestic employment is the status of workers, that is, whether they are permanent or temporary. Firms initiating FDI may prefer to use temporary workers so as to avoid uncertainty about the success of overseas investment. Another reason why firms investing abroad prefer temporary workers to permanent workers is that multi-national firms cannot find workers with proper qualifications in a frictional labor market immediately after the FDI decision was made. Thus, they may prefer to employ temporary workers until they can find the qualified permanent workers. In this context, the impact of OFDI on temporary employment may depend on the flexibility of the labor market in the countries in which the FDI takes place. In fact, Korea is a country with serious rigidity in its labor market. According to OECD statistics, Korea has more stringent employment protection than the OCED average. This explains why Korea has relatively high demand for temporary workers, which may be closely associated with OFDI.

A recent study from KIEP used the data on 83 manufacturing industries in Korea, for the period of 2007-2015, to decompose the impacts of OFDI on overall domestic employment into the forms of OFDI, workers' skill level and employment status. The main finding was that OFDI has no effect on the overall employment of permanent workers, while it is positively associated with the overall employment of temporary workers. These results possibly indicate that the MNEs initiating FDI, at least in Korea, prefer employing temporary workers rather than permanent workers when the success of their FDI is not clearly visible. Given the high degree of labor market rigidity in Korea, these results seem legitimate and self-explaining. When looking into the effect of OFDI on the relative demand for temporary workers (that is, the employment ratio of temporary-to-permanent workers within each skill group), efficient-seeking FDI only leads to an increase in the relative demand for temporary workers in the medium skilled group, while the relative demand for temporary workers in other skilled groups (low- and high-skilled) does not appear to be affected by OFDI. This result implies that, rather than hiring permanent workers, efficiency-seeking FDI firms, that is, those that aim to achieve higher productivity efficiency through lower factor costs, prefer to use temporary medium-skilled workers.

Although there is little evidence that OFDI has an impact on overall domestic employment, especially for permanent workers, there does exist heterogeneous effects of OFDI on employment depending on the types of FDI, workers' skill level and employment status. For in-stance, market-seeking FDI, which is the most common form of the outward FDI initiated by Korean MNEs, has no impact on domestic employment, and both efficiency-seeking and ex-port-platform-seeking types of OFDI are positively associated with employment regardless of employment status. These results suggest that one needs to take into account all the heterogeneous effects of OFDI on employment so as to capture a link between OFDI and domestic employment in a source country.

Since these results were based on the analysis using industry-level data that includes other related firms as well as multi-national firms, such as subcontracting firms to MNEs or domes-tic suppliers, one should be cautious in interpreting the results; they reflect the overall effect of OFDI on the industry-level employment, thus going beyond the changes in employment within firms that invest abroad. Despite these advantages of industry-level data, the analysis using firm-level data may be useful in deriving policy implications in that it can provide meaningful information about the fundamental causes and backgrounds of a link between OFDI and employment.

WHANG Un Jung，Ph.D., Research Fellow, Regional Trade Agreement Team, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)

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