Digital empowerment has become deeply embedded in global production networks, yet its implications for sectoral energy systems remain insufficiently understood. This study investigates whether digital empowerment is associated with sectoral energy-structure transition and through which channels. Using matched World Input–Output Database accounts for 2000–2014 and applying the Hypothetical Extraction Method (HEM), we measure digital empowerment at the country–sector level and examine its association with sectoral energy-use outcomes. The estimates indicate that digital empowerment is associated with a lower fossil-fuel share and lower total sectoral energy consumption in the full sample, although the associations differ across non-fossil energy categories, sectors, and development stages. Additional channel-based tests show that digital empowerment is associated with lower energy intensity, improved global value-chain positioning, and higher export technological sophistication. Both domestic and foreign digital inputs contribute to this relationship, and manufacturing sectors show a clearer association with lower total energy consumption than service sectors. Developing economies exhibit weaker compositional adjustment than developed economies. These findings provide empirical evidence for integrating digitalization into energy transition strategies and offer practical pathways for aligning digital economic development with sustainable energy objectives.

Employment adjustment under digital transformation is a multilevel outcome that depends not only on regional technical capability but also on the structural configuration and worker response conditions in which that capability is embedded. This study examines the relationship between provincial data-factor capability and individual employment in China by matching China Family Panel Studies data for 2012–2022 with a provincial DataIndex. Binary Logit models with province and year fixed effects reveal an age gradient: the employment association of DataIndex is positive for younger workers, weakens around midlife, and becomes negative at older ages. Province-year regressions further show that stronger data-factor capability is associated with industrial structure upgrading and greater regional innovation activity, while interaction tests indicate less favorable employment associations among agricultural-hukou and rural residents. These findings show that improvements in regional digital capability do not translate uniformly into employment gains. Instead, their labor-market consequences depend on worker adaptability and institutional and spatial conditions. The study therefore highlights the need to evaluate digital transformation not only through technological and structural progress, but also through the inclusiveness of its employment outcomes.