NEW CHANGE OF CHINA'S JOB MARKET: OPPORTUNITIES, CHALLENGES AND COUNTERMEASURES

Zeng Xiangquan

Abstract: Over the past decade, China has made remarkable achievements in employment. In the 2017 World Competitiveness Report released by International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland, China ranked first in the world in terms of employment, domestic economy and labor market. But in recent years, with the increase of economic downturn pressure in China and the impact of COVID-19 recently, the unemployment rate in China's urban areas has increased to 6.2% in February 2020. CIER has dropped from 2.47 in January to 1.02 in March2020, which is the largest drop in 10 years and highlights the pressure of China's job market. At present, the four new changes that need most attention in China's job market are as follows: The decrease of labor supply, the development of platform-type employment, the persistence of structural contradictions and the increase of uncertainty factors. These new changes bring many challenges, and the continuous decline of labor supply not only relieves the pressure of job market, but also brings pension problems under the background of population aging; platform-type employment development not only promotes the increase of employment quantity, but also produces employment polarization and quality problems; structural contradictions have a great negative impact on the employment quality; the increase of uncertainty has brought the pressure of economic downturn and increase of unemployment. However, these challenges are also opportunities for improving the employment quality, the structure of domestic demand and the ability of government governance. Therefore, we put forward four countermeasures to seize the opportunity in terms of employment policy: maintain the macroeconomic stability and create conditions for stable employment; take a positive and cautious attitude towards new technologies such as AI; strengthen information flow and improve market efficiency; deepen the reform of education and training and attach importance to the cultivation of soft skills.

Keywords: Employment; Labor Supply; Platform-type Employment; Structural Contradictions; Uncertainty