Abstract: There exists a significant positive correlation between the proportion of China’s tertiary industry in GDP and the gross employment; on the contrary, the share of secondary industry in GDP is correlated negatively with the gross employment. Therefore, to prompt the development of tertiary industry by loosening the regulations of industries and to let the labors switch smoothly between the industries through professional training are two important ways to improve the level of employment. Furthermore, the relationships between industrial structure and employment are different at different regions. In the developed regions, the relationship between the two is the same as that resulted from the regression of the full sample; while in the less developed regions, the industrial structure has no significant effect on employment, but both the average years of education and the population age structure are correlated positively with employment. Therefore, to improve the quality of labors and to optimize the age structure are more important than to adjust industrial structure in promoting the growth of employment in the less developed regions. In addition, the elasticity of employment with respect to GDP is significantly positive, so to keep a high speed of GDP growth also plays a key role in boosting China’s employment.

Key words: industrial structure; employment; panel data counting model