Using staggered exogenous shocks to mandatory CSR disclosure, we examine the effect of mandatory CSR disclosure on employment growth. We find that CSR reporting firms have a higher employment growth following the mandate than non-CSR reporting firms. With respect to potential channels, we document that mandatory CSR disclosure promotes employment growth by improving firms’ CSR performance on employee welfare. In cross-sectional tests, we find that the employment effect is more pronounced for state-owned enterprises, firms in hazardous industries and firms in high-tech industries. We also find that cities most impacted by the mandate exhibit higher aggregate employment growth. While mandatory CSR disclosure promotes employment growth of mandated firms, it has a crowding out effect on employment growth of non-mandated local peer firms. Our paper offers novel evidence on the impact of mandatory CSR disclosure on labor resource allocation.