As a pivotal market-based mechanism for achieving China's "dual carbon" targets, carbon emissions trading policy necessitates economic impact assessments that transcend the constraints of conventional environmental regulation research. Hence, examining the employment effects of carbon emissions trading holds substantial theoretical value and practical significance. Drawing on panel data from Chinese listed companies spanning from 2009 to 2019, this study employs a propensity score matching with difference-in-differences(PSM-DID) approach to empirically investigate the employment adjustment effects and labor reallocation pathways induced by China's pilot carbon emissions trading scheme. The findings reveal that carbon emissions trading has significantly expanded employment scale among companies in pilot regions while restructuring their employment composition. The employment adjustment effects are predominantly driven by policy-covered companies in first-tier pilot regions and primarily impact highly-educated workers. Through R&D innovation and capital investment channels, carbon emissions trading increases the employment share of highly-educated workers, while reducing the proportion of production workers through the production cost channel. Labor reallocation manifests as highly-educated workers migrating from non-pilot to pilot regions, and from low-carbon to high-carbon industries within pilot regions. These findings provide micro-level empirical evidence for establishing a nationwide carbon emissions trading market and offer novel insights into the ongoing academic discourse on whether environmental regulations can yield a "double dividend" of environmental and economic benefits, particularly concerning the employment impacts of market-based environmental instruments.