Xi Jinping’s government has stabilized China’s labor market over the past 10 years and has managed to withstand the tremendous impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges posed by the economic downturn since 2020.
According to data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, China’s urban working population has increased over the past 10 years, from 373 million in 2012 to 468 million in 2021, and the average annual growth of new employees during the period was about 13 million.
A greater number of people moved to work in the services sector from 2012, which contributed to improving the employment outlook.
The ministry said service sector employees made up 30.4% of the total workforce in 2012, and that figure rose to 48% in 2021.
So the overall employment picture remains stable, giving strong support to China’s economic development.
The continuing fight against the labor crisis
However, as the country with the largest population in the world, China faces continued employment pressure and a widening structural imbalance in the labor market.
Growing uncertainties also raise challenges in employment promotion efforts.
One of the key groups that may find it harder to find work due to population growth is university graduates – some 10.76 million this year – who have attracted much attention from the Chinese central government in the past 10 years.
China regards the employment of university graduates as of great importance to the Asian nation’s future, social welfare and economic development.
However, this group is the one that has faced the greatest challenges in recent years after the number of job offers decreased due to sporadic outbreaks of COVID-19.
This is why the Xi Jinping government continues to consider the employment of graduates as a priority and plans more and more supporting policies to attract them to work in grassroots positions, creating their own companies or accepting flexible jobs.
Support policies also include the organization of both online and face-to-face employment to help them get more job opportunities or internships.
Another measure China’s Ministry of Labor has taken has been to improve the protection of the rights of university graduates, for example by sanctioning illegal recruitment agencies and investigating bias against graduates when seeking work.
Social Security
In addition to employment, the Chinese Ministry of Labor has also made more efforts since 2012 to improve the state-level social safety net to cover more people, especially those who are vulnerable, such as migrant workers, or have flexible employment. .
According to the Ministry, the population covered by state-level pension security increased from 790 million in 2012 to 1.03 billion in 2021.
Similarly, the population covered by the national unemployment safety net and the work-related injury net reached 230 million and 280 million respectively last year, up from 150 million and 190 million in 2012.
Pensions granted to retirees have also increased in the last 10 years, and, despite the continuing economic crisis since the pandemic, China has stated that it has enough reserves to cover social security obligations.
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In 2021, the income of the pension security fund was 4.4 trillion yuan (642 billion U.S. dollars), and the disbursement was 4.1 trillion yuan, which is a balanced budget.
In different press conferences, Chinese officials have assured that the Asian giant will continue to improve the social security system to make it fairer and more sustainable when it comes to supporting payments to beneficiaries.
The central government’s policies have been geared towards resolving the labor crisis, and although some progress has been made in this area, China still has several challenges ahead, especially regarding youth employment.
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