The size of China's workforce declined for the second straight year in 2013, a trend that is set to continue and have widespread implications for emerging markets, according to experts.



The country's working age population fell by 2.44 million to 919.54 million in 2013, marking the second consecutive year of decline, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Monday.

The working age population - defined as those from 15 to 59 - accounted for 67.6 percent of the country's overall population – down 1.6 percentage points from the previous year.

"From the perspective of the world economy, the turn in the dynamics of the Chinese workforce, still the world's largest, will be the most important shift," Sanjeev Sanyal, global strategist at Deustche Bank wrote in a reported dated September 2013.

(Read more: The aging in Asia face a new decade like no other)

China's shrinking workforce will spur the transformation of the country from "factory to the world" into the "investor to the world," Sanyal said. This will create opportunities for other emerging markets such as Indonesia, Philippines and India to enter market segments being vacated by China, he said, including export-oriented manufacturing.