Artificial intelligence investment and corporate labour demand: evidence from corporate hiring

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the corporate development landscape. This study constructs corporate labour demand indicators based on big data from online recruitment platforms, using Chinese Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies as the research sample to investigate how AI investment (AII) influences corporate labour demand (LD). The findings indicate that the impact of AI investment on labour demand primarily manifests as job creation rather than job displacement, an effect driven mainly by software investment rather than hardware investment. Moreover, the expansion in labour demand is predominantly observed in non-routine task positions, private enterprises, non-high-tech industries, and non-labour-intensive sectors. This job creation effect is underpinned by higher skill and educational requirements, which correspondingly lead to higher wage premiums. Mechanism analysis results demonstrate that the employment creation effect of AI investment is primarily transmitted through internal channels such as the emergence of new field technology and productivity enhancement, rather than through external market scale expansion.