Abstract: In order to avoid the problems of information asymmetry and rent-seeking in environmental governance, it is necessary to encourage the public to fully participate in environmental ecological construction. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2007 to 2016, this paper divides the public environmental participation into three dimensions, i.e., publicity, direct petition letters and indirect proposals, to study the non-linear relationship between public environmental participation and employment structure with the threshold panel model. The results show that the environment publicity and environment petition letters and visits have threshold effects on employment industry structure and employment skill structure. There is a threshold effect on the industrial structure of employment in the environment category of the NPC Recommendations and CPPCC Proposals, while there is no threshold effect on the skill structure of employment. The public participation in the environment has optimized the employment structure and alleviated structural unemployment.

Key words: public environmental participation; employment structure; panel threshold model