Abstract: Technological innovation and employment stability are of great significance to the high-quality development of China's economy, but technological progress inevitably raises concerns about potential employment problems.Using a quasi-natural experiment produced by the SRDI ‘little giants’ enterprises identification policy, this paper takes China's A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2022 as samples, and explores the effects and mechanisms between the policy and enterprise labor employment by difference-in-difference approach. The paper finds that the identification of SRDI ‘little giants’ enterprises significantly promotes the increase of labor employment, especially in private enterprises and in private enterprises, key industries with higher density of ‘little giants’ enterprises, more competitive industries, and areas with low regional innovation level. Further tests show that tax incentives, bank loans and financial constraint are the main mechanisms．Finally，the increase of labor employment also significantly promotes enterprise human capital structure upgrading and boosts enterprise high-quality development. The results of this paper show that the identification and cultivation of SRDI ‘little giants’ enterprises is an effective policy to promote technological progress and achieve employment growth, which is instructive for optimizing the cultivation policy of small and medium-sized enterprises, stabilizing employment and safeguarding people's wellbeing.

摘要： 技术创新与就业稳定对于我国经济高质量发展具有重要意义，但技术进步不可避免地会引起对潜在就业问题的担忧。本文以专精特新“小巨人”企业认定政策为切入点，对2015-2022年沪深A股上市公司开展准自然实验，利用双重差分法考察该政策影响企业劳动雇佣的效应与机理。研究发现：（1）“小巨人”企业认定显著增加了企业劳动雇佣规模，且结果稳健；（2）该效应在民营企业、“小巨人”企业密度更高的关键行业、竞争更激烈的行业、区域创新水平低的地区更显著；（3）“小巨人”企业认定通过提高税收优惠程度、增加银行贷款、降低融资约束促进了企业劳动雇佣规模的提升；（4）“小巨人”企业认定通过增加企业劳动雇佣促进了企业人力资本结构优化升级与高质量发展。本文的研究结果表明，专精特新“小巨人”的认定与培育，是推动企业创新与技术进步、实现就业增长的有效举措，对优化中小企业培育政策、实现稳就业保民生具有启示意义。