Objective/Meaning By exploring the positive role of the merchant employer system in solving the employment issues of the left-behind female embroiderers, it was expected to construct a new ladder for these women to step towards the economic independence, thus to optimize the employment structure and promote the prosperity in common.

Methods/Procedures Based on the micro-survey data of the Yi embroidery production and operation in Yongren County of Yunnan Province, the effect of the merchant employer system on the employment of the left-behind female embroiderers was studied by using the abstract method.

Results/Conclusions Through the system of merchant employer, the embroidery skills of the left-behind female embroiderers could be transformed into the productive skills to obtain monetary income, and their scattered leisure time could be transformed into labor time to create value and surplus value, thus realizing the qualitative leap from non-productive personnel to productive laborers and from the production of self-sufficiency products to commodity production. As a form of production organization before the emergence of the capitalist mode of production, the “backward theory” of the merchant employer system was not appropriate, and still had practical significance in the national economy and even the Chinese economy.