<p>The Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) hold both ecological and economic value. However, the trend of off-farm employment may pose threats to the NTFPs cultivation. Despite this, limited research has explored the specific impact of farmers' participation in off-farm employment on NTFPs cultivation. To address this gap, we collect data from 876 households across Guangdong, Sichuan, and Shaanxi provinces in China, in 2020. We also investigate the differences in NTFPs cultivation decisions among households with varying degrees of off-farm employment. The New Economics of Labor Migration theory is applied for analysis, and the Probit and Tobit regression models with quadratic terms are used for estimation. The results indicate that: (1) In recent years, the NTFPs cultivation area in these surveyed provinces has shown stagnation or even decline. Moreover, investment in cultivation primarily relies on intensive labor input. (2) There exists an inverted U-shaped relationship between farmers' off-farm employment and NTFPs cultivation. (3) The remittance effect mitigates labor loss by increasing non-labor-substituting investment, as well as by substituting labor with machinery. (4) The increasing non-labor-substituting investment plays a significant mediating role among agricultural households and part-time farming households with low levels of off-farm work. However, the labor substitution by machinery merely alleviates labor shortages in part-time farming households with lower levels of off-farm work engagement. These findings suggest that, under the current trend of off-farm employment, the attractiveness of NTFPs is limited. The scarcity of labor and technological constraints of machinery limit farmers' ability to cultivate NTFPs.</p>