China Unemployment Facts Sheet
According to the trading economics statistics of 2002 to 2015, the unemployment rate in China has been steady at 4.10 percent since the first quarter of this year 2015, thereby recording an unchanged figure (Trading Economics, 2015). According to the report, the rate has averaged 4.13 percent since 2002, reaching an all-time high of 4.30 percent and an all-time low of 3.90 percent in the third quarter of the year 2003. The rate measures the number of people who are looking for job opportunities in relation to the labor force. With a population of more than 1.3 billion people, 4 percent is not a small number of people and this poses challenges to the government (Song, 2003). Despite this fact, the country’s government attaches great importance to employment and prioritizes employment since it improves the livelihood of the citizens and ensures the stability of the nation/society (Yan, 2006). To enable this come true, the country has learnt from the national conditions and has drawn a lot from the international experiences in its efforts to improve its practices through the implementation of the legal system and proactive government policies. The country has embarked on the development of a national economy, the adjustment of the industrial structure, and the reformation of the political and economic setting including the harmonization of the economic development between the rural and urban areas and the social security system (Knight & Xue, 2006). All these have been undertaken in order to create avenues that would lead to increased job opportunities through expanding the employment scale, thus keeping the unemployment level at a tolerable rate. This will also improve the living standards of many people who will be employed.
According to the employment plan (2014) in China, the country still faces a complicated situation since there exist unstable and uncertain factors including the downward pressure on the economy that have an impact on the employment expansion (3). To determine the employment rates, some determinants in the economy including GDP and the consumer prices ought to be considered. The 2014 indexes showed that the country’s GDP growth was about 7.5 percent, the consumer price resting at approximate 3.5 percent, and an increased urban employment of over 10 million people (We, 2011).
Analysis of the Employment Situation in China
The supply of labor and demand is likely to lead to employment structural contradictions since the rising number of graduate youth’s needs employment. The transfer of rural labor to the urban setting also poses challenges to the economy, as there will be few people to provide labour and develop the rural economy (Bai, 2006). This will also be affected by the changing economic development, the restructuring of the economy as the country enters the first worlds with the largest GDP globally, and the overcapacity of the labor force. Due to limited employment in the rural agricultural based setting, many people are moving to the urban setting, thereby creating a floated population in the city (Nielsen, Smyth & Zhang, 2006). Reports indicate that the labor statistics have not been kept at bay with the recent changes since the official information indicates only those people who register from the unemployment benefits. This fact undervalues and understates the true unemployment rates that may be above the reported figure of 4.1 percent (Giles, Albert & Zhang, 2005).
References
Bai, L. (2006). Graduate unemployment: Dilemmas and challenges in China’s move to mass higher education. The China Quarterly, 185, 128-144.
Ge, W. (2011). China’s Urban Unemployment Challenge. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(4), 16-31.
Giles, J., Albert, P., & Zhang, J. (2005). What is China’s true unemployment rate? China Economic Review, 16(2), 149-170.
Knight, J., & Xue, J. (2006). How high is urban unemployment in China? Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, 4(2), 91-107.
Nielsen, I., Smyth, R., & Zhang, M. (2006). Unemployment within China’s floating population: Empirical evidence from Jiangsu survey data. Chinese Economy, 39(4), 41-56.
Song, S. (2003). Policy issues of China’s urban unemployment. Contemporary Economic Policy, 21(2), 258-269.
Trading economics. (2015). China Unemployment Rate. Retrieved on 05-05-2015 from http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/unemployment-rate
Yan, D. I. (2006). China’s Employment Policies and Strategies.