Employment is the foundation of survival and development of the youth, and the precondition of harmonious social development. Solving the unemployment problem of the youth through effort of all sectors of society can not only drive the improvement of human resources, and the acceleration of economic growth, but more importantly, it can facilitate healthy growth of the youth and the stability and harmony of society. China is a nation with a huge young population, and employment is a youth issue to some extent. Governments at all levels and all sectors of society have fully recognized the unique characters of the youth, formulated appropriate policies and taken measures to improve employment of the youth, which have witnessed significant results.  

The Chinese government adheres to employment-improving macroeconomic policies

China has 1.3 billion people and is the country of the largest population in the world, making employment a hard, pressing and heavy task. The Chinese government starts with the basic interests of all the people and stresses that employment is the foundation of the people’s livelihood and the fundamental precondition and channel for people to improve their living standard. Since the Reform and Opening up, the Chinese government always considers employment improvement a strategic task to economic and social development, regards the job creation as the main objective of economic macro-control. Efforts are made to expand the domestic demand and maintain a certain level of economic growth rate through the implementation of the proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy, which helped to achieved a sustained, rapid and healthy economic development, hence to stimulate job growth.

China has a large working population. By the end of 2005, China's total population reached 1.31 billion. Rural and urban employees reached 758.25 million, of which 273.31 million are urban people, 484.94 million from rural area. The registered urban unemployment population is 8.39 million and the registered urban unemployment rate is 4.2%. Among the employees all over China, youth (16-34 years) account for 33.6%. The contradictions exist in China’s employment are: unbalance between supply and demand of labor and irrational employment structure coexist, increasing pressure on urban employment and accelerating speed of transfer of abundant rural labor to non-agricultural sectors appear simultaneously, new labor crowding into the market and reemployment issue intertwined. Among all the problems, youth employment is becoming increasingly important. Nowadays, 75% job seekers in the labor market are youth under 35. In recent years, as enrollments in colleges and universities have expanded rapidly, the number of college graduates has increased rapidly from 1.17 million in 2001 to 4.95 million in 2007. In the next few years, the number of college graduates will be kept at over five million people.

Since 1990s, China has established the goal of building the socialist market economic system. Employment has thus experienced the substantial transition from the old to the new economic system, to which a series of historical changes have taken place. Considering the actual conditions of the nation, the Chinese government has implemented active employment policies and determined the guideline of ‘self-chosen employment, market regulation and government support’. The Chinese government adheres to promote employment through the development of the economy, adjusting the economic structure, deepening reform, coordinating development of urban and rural economy and improving the social security system. Effective measures are taken to increase job opportunities, expand the scope of employment, and control the unemployment rate within the social tolerance limits. At present, China has set up a market-oriented employment mechanism, the problem of labor force redundancy in enterprises under the planned economic system has been solved basically. Employment has been continuously expanded during economic growth and economic structural adjustment, the employment structure is being gradually optimized. More employment channels have been constantly developed. The forms of employment are becoming more flexible, and employment situation maintained stable basically. 

Sustained growth of the Chinese economy has created numerous jobs for the youth. In consideration of the huge population and rich labor resources in China, the Chinese government has adhered to employment-improving macroeconomic policies to greatly drive economic growth and thus create more jobs. While promoting economic growth, the government has actively adjusted the structure of employment, developed labor-intensive enterprises that are relatively advantageous and of market potentials, particularly service businesses and small or medium-sized enterprises that can provide a large number of jobs, pursued flexible channels of employment, made great effort to grow the non-public economy, and improved the employment structure. In August 2002, China promulgated the Law for Promoting Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, further standardizing and facilitating the development of the enterprises. From 1990 to 2006, China’s employed population had expanded from 650 million to 764 million, a rise of 114 million. Unemployment rate had been put under effective control, the registered unemployment rate in cities and towns was maintained at 3% or so in most of the years, in comparison with 4.6% at the end of 2006. During the "11th Five-Year Plan" period, China's registered unemployment rate in urban areas will be controlled within 5%. The percentage of population employed in the service sector, rose from 18.5% in 1990 to 32.2% in 2006, with 91.1 million new jobs created.

Active efforts have been made to establish the market-oriented employment mechanism to promote employment of the youth. The government has cultivated and developed labor markets and gradually identified the principle of enterprises as main employers and labor force as main sources for employees in the markets. Meanwhile, reforms have been coordinated and accelerated in areas of social security, housing and household registration systems. The objective environment for labor market development has been significantly improved, and the market-oriented employment mechanism has started to play a fundamental role in the deployment of labor resources. In order to solve the employment problem of college graduates, the Chinese government has implemented a number of measures to eliminate restriction concerning social identity, place of registered permanent residence and employment quota in most cities, and helps the graduates realize competitive and flexible employment in the markets. At the same time, the government guided colleges and universities to adjust their curriculum and human resource development structure in accordance with the market needs. Since late 1990s, the Chinese government has paid great effort to make labor markets scientific, standardized and modernized, established the public employment service system, and constantly enriched employment information. The government has also encouraged and standardized the growth of non-governmental employment service agencies. The Ministry of Education and local educational administrations have constructed and improved employment service information networks to provide college graduates employment guidance and services. All-China Youth Federation has carried out the campaign of “Job Information Express” to set up 651 youth employment service centers in 107 key cities for employment and reemployment of the youth, which provide job introduction and employment consulting services and bridged the youth with employment markets for information exchange and communications. All these efforts have played a positive role in easing employment pressure and facilitating full employment of the youth.

The youth are actively encouraged to start their own businesses. The ultimate solution of employment problem is to create new jobs and to promote employment and reemployment through initiating new businesses. As the most vigorous and creative group in society, Chinese youth have strong desire and enormous potential to carry out their own businesses. The Chinese government and society have highly recognized their enthusiasm, launched relevant policies, and carried out activities with entrepreneurship as the theme, which have seen good effects. In the Opinions of the State Council on Encouraging, Supporting and Guiding the Growth of Non-public Economies including Self-employed and Private Economies dated February 2005, it was explicitly pointed out “actively provide services for business start-ups. Further implement the national employment and reemployment policies, expand the policy support to independently starting business, and encourage laid-off workers, retired soldiers, college graduates and Chinese overseas students to establish small enterprises, create new jobs and improve employment through starting new businesses.” The State has taken many measures to encourage college students to start their own businesses and seek flexible employment, and has offered them services including preferential tax treatments, micro credits, business training and guidance, policy consultancy, and follow-up coaching. The Chinese government implemented tax preferential policies to encourage enterprises to recruit the unemployed urban youth. According to the regulation, if there are over 60% of staff that are resettled unemployed urban people in a new enterprise in the first year, it can be exempted from income tax for three years. After the tax-free period, if in that year, the newly resettled unemployed persons accounted for the 30% of its original total employment. Meanwhile, China established public employment service system for the unemployed，providing free employment services and vocational guidance for youth, guiding them to participate in job training. From the beginning of 1998, All-China Youth Federation and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security have successively launched the Entrepreneurship Campaign for Young Laid-off Workers and China Youth Entrepreneurship Campaign. The former is a mass experiment to support and guide young laid-off workers to achieve reemployment through starting their own businesses. The campaign focuses on the training of young leading entrepreneurs, adopts the means of employment training and intermediary services and aims at improving the reemployment of the workers. The China Youth Entrepreneurship Campaign organizes and implements business start-up activities across the nation, achieves breakthrough effects by fostering young entrepreneurs, and mainly contains provision of support for start-up businesses, skill training, intermediary services, concept instructions and employment aid. Its purpose is to drive employment and reemployment through business creation and help solve the employment problem of the youth. In more than 6 years after implementation, it has offered business start-up skill training to nearly 400,000 young people, and cultivated, supported nearly 90,000 young enterprisers, who have not only realized employment of themselves, but also directly resettled more than 1.1 million laid-off workers.

Improve employability of the youth

Active efforts have been made to develop educational undertakings of all types. In order to enhance the educational quality and skills of labor force, the Chinese government has made active efforts through diversified channels to promote educational and training undertakings of all types, implemented the system of equivalent educational diplomas and vocational qualification certificates, and greatly driven the development of intermediate and higher diploma education as well as vocational skill training through the popularization of nine-year compulsory education. All these efforts have led to all-round improvement of labor force in terms of educational quality, skills, employability, and abilities to start new enterprises and adapt to job changes.

Actively promote the labor reserve system. Labor reserve system is a new labor system adopted by Chinese government, aiming to improve the overall quality of young people, cultivating reserve force for the labor market. In 1999, labor reserve system, as a national system was established and universally implemented. It regulates that junior and senior high school graduates who are unable to further their studies or prepare to shift to non-agricultural industries, as migrant workers must accept 1 to 3 years pre-employment training and vocational education. After acquiring relevant qualification or managing new skills, one can be employed through labor market. The vestibule schools, employment training centers and private training institutions play an important role in labor reserve system. This system effectively enhanced the employability of the new labor force, broadened the employment channels and laid a good foundation for youth career development.

Skills training of laborers has been strengthened. Effective from 2002, the State has implemented the Programme for Strengthening Vocational Training and Improving Employability, the National Training Project for Highly Skilled Human Resources and initiated the Programme for Training Five Hundred Thousand New Technicians in Three Years to extensively carry out activities for skill development, accelerate the training of a huge group of skilled and technical laborers, especially highly skilled laborers, and improve the employability, working skills and job transition skills of all labor force. The government has further formulated the National Migrant laborer Training Plan for 2003—2010, under which directive and vocational skill training will be offered within the 7 years to the 60 million rural laborers who want to move into cities in order to promote the overall quality and employability of migrant workers.

Reemployment training has been strengthened. The Chinese government has made reemployment training as an effective channel for promoting the reemployment of laid-off workers. From 1998 to 2000, the government had implemented the Reemployment Training Plan for Ten Million in Three Years. During the three years, 13 million laid-off workers had been trained in cumulative, and 65% of them had realized reemployment. Based on experiences drawn from the three years, the second stage of the training plan was further implemented. From 2001 to 2003, totally 15.3 million laid-off personnel had been organized to participate in reemployment training in flexible and diversified forms. In 2006 there were 6.45 million unemployed and laid-off workers attended reemployment training. 630,000 people participated in the entrepreneurship training.

Youth organizations’ contribution to promote youth employability. In collaboration with related governmental departments, the All-China Youth Federation launched and implemented youth entrepreneurship campaign nationwide, with promoting employment of the college students as the key priority, intermediary service, skills training, business start-up support, and employment assistance as the main measures. The youth organizations stick to the theme of ‘strengthen training, promote entrepreneurship, supporting entrepreneurship and promoting employment’, making every effort to help the laid-off and unemployed youths, new migrant workers and the rural surplus labors in the following six contents:

       1. Actively carry out youth employment services. The youth organizations work on promoting the university student employment promotion plan, extensively mobilize the member enterprises and entrepreneurs of the Chinese Young Entrepreneurs Association and All-China Youth Federation, looking for job positions cater for the university graduates, and hold special recruitment fair. Activities like “Recruitment Fair on Campus” and employment hotline for students and youth are held. The “University Students Internship Plan” is expanded to enrich students’ career experiences. Works like the “Go West University Student Volunteer Services”, “Job Express Action” and “Migrant Rural Youth Employment Service Month” have been deepened. The “Job Express Action”, which has established 651 youth employment service centers in 107 key cities, has already become a bridge connecting youth and the labor market by carrying out employment recommendation and consultation for youth.

2. Continue to deepen the youth employment skill training. Further promote the "one million laid-off and unemployed youth skills training project"; carry out skills training and market adaptability training for the laid-off and unemployed youth; carry out job training and counseling for university students; Join agriculture sector, science and technology sector, related departments and agencies and other institutions to continue the implementation of projects "Delivering Science to Farmers" and "Spark Technology Brings Wealth"; Organize “Light of S&T” youth expert group, and further promote youth training programs.

3. Step up efforts to support youth entrepreneurship. The youth organizations of all levels implement the entrepreneurship plan by entrepreneurship training, entrepreneurship consultancy, enterprise internship and incubation with “Micro-loan Project” as the leading mechanism. Expand the scale of SYB training; initiate “KAB Courses” in 100 higher education institutions nationwide; establish youth businesses database; hold entrepreneurship project conference, set up mentor groups, hiring business start-up advisors; enlarge the scale and intensity of Youth Business China; nominate and support a group of rural youth entrepreneurship support centers; Encourage overseas scholars and the newly returned students to start their own business. In the end of 2006, YBC has already established 5 offices in Shanghai, Shandong, Shanxi, Fujian and Beijing, recruiting more than 800 entrepreneurs as mentors, releasing RMB￥5,644,989 Yuan loan, providing training and consultation for more than 10,000 youth, supporting 116 youth enterprises and creating over 1,000 job posts. Now, over 95% of these enterprises operate successfully.

4. Strengthen education on youth employment conception. Organize lectures on employment conception; help the students improve their concept on employment through various social practice and lectures.

5. Conduct in-depth assistance on youth employment.Carry out “Warm Assistance to Families” action; motivate the “Model Youth Units” to provide legal aid to laid-off and unemployed youth.

6. Strengthen the capacity building of youth entrepreneurship service providers. Give full play to regional joint meeting of youth employment service centers, focus on improving the quality of staffs working for youth employment issues, and build information networks among these centers.

Efforts have been paid to provide social security to unemployed youth

The Chinese government has been continuously improving its unemployment insurance system. In mid 1980s, China established insurance system to provide unemployed people with unemployment insurance and medical subside, manage and serve the unemployed, and bring into full play the role of unemployment insurance in promoting employment and reemployment. In 1998, the Chinese government founded the ‘triple-insurance-line’ system covering basic livelihood insurance for laid-off employees of state-owned enterprises, unemployment insurance, and minimum livelihood insurance for urban citizens. In January 1999, the government promulgated the Unemployment Insurance Provision to further improve the unemployment insurance system. The government has explored channels to develop social security for migrant workers. The coverage of social security in some major labor import regions has been extended to the migrant workers. Appropriate policies and regulations have been formulated, and active efforts have been made to improve social security for the workers, providing occupational injury, medical and pension insurances. The Ministry of Civil Affairs offers temporary aid to poor graduates of colleges and universities. If a college graduate is registered as permanent residents in a place and unable to work and being in financial difficulty due to reasons like illness, the local civil affairs authorities in the place should grant temporary aid to the graduate referring to the local standard of minimum livelihood security. The aid can be granted for no more than one year. Student whose family is still in financial difficulty after the one year should apply for minimum livelihood security or other social relief according to applicable regulations. The constantly improved social security system has provided the youth the foundation for a stable life.   

Importance has been attached to the protection of employment right of special youth groups

The Chinese government has at all time attached great importance to the interests of special groups including young women, disabled youth, young migrant workers, child and minor laborers, and has actively taken appropriate measures to protect their interests.

The right of equal employment of young women is protected. The Constitution, the Labor Law and the Law on Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests of the People’s Republic of China contain provisions specifically for protecting women’s right of employment. The State protects women’s equal employment right as men, eliminates gender discrimination in employment, requires equal pay for men and women taking the same job, and guarantees special labor protection for female employees in menstrual period, pregnancy, maternity leave, breast-feeding period and in workplace.   

The employment right of disabled youth is protected. Chinese laws provide that the State protects the employment right of disabled people, the government plans the employment of the disabled people as a whole and creates preferential conditions for their employment. In order to protect the legitimate employment rights and interests of the disabled, the government has strengthened supervision and law enforcement, to promptly identify and rectify employers’ actions infringing such rights and interests and violating laws, regulations. China has implemented the guideline of combining centralized with dispersed employment, and adopted preferential policies, supportive and protective measures to improve employment of the disabled through different channels and in diversified forms.  

The legitimate rights and interests of young migrant workers are protected. The Chinese government has gradually improved the administration of employment contracts of migrant workers. Employers of migrant workers are required to sign employment contracts with them according to law to define the rights and obligations of the laborers. The government has strengthened the regulation of labor markets, the supervision and inspection of employers and employment agencies and the administration of salary payment and working conditions, carried out special inspections on enforcement of laws for protecting the rights and interests of migrant workers, investigated and rigorously penalized illegal job placements and such actions as cheating migrant workers with false job information, and hence effectively protected the legal rights and interests of the laborers and maintained good order of labor markets. 

Employment of child laborers is prohibited and minor laborers are protected.Article XV of the Labor Law of the People’s Republic of China expressly provides that ‘employers are prohibited from recruiting and hiring minors below sixteen years old. Cultural, art, sport and special technical institutions employing minors below sixteen years old must fulfill approval formalities according to applicable regulations of the State and protect their right to receive compulsory education’, ‘the State provides special labor protection to female employees and minor laborers. Minor laborers refer to laborers above sixteen but below eighteen years old’, and that ‘minor laborers may not be arranged to work in mines or to take part in toxic, harmful work or work of Level-IV intensity as defined by the State, or other work banned against them’. In article 38 of the 2006 Amendment to the Law on the Protection of Minors, it regulates that “No organization or individual is allowed to employ persons under 16 years of age, except where otherwise stipulated by the State. Any organizations or individuals who employ minors between 16 and 18 in accordance with the relevant regulations of the state should implement the state requirements on working types, hours, intensity and protection measures. Heavy, toxic, hazardous work which are harmful to the physical and mental health of minors are prohibited.”

Special protection for minor laborers as stated in other related laws and regulations mainly covers minimum employment age, working time protection, work type limits, regular medical examination, and adoption of various certificates and licenses.

In addition to domestic legislation, the Chinese government has also signed a number of international labor conventions prohibiting employment of child laborers and protecting minor laborers. China has ratified such international labor conventions as the Convention on Minimum Age Permitted for Employment, the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention, the Convention Concerning Equal Remuneration for Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value, and the Employment Policy Convention.

Prospects and challenges of youth employment

Chinese youth are faced with very tough employment situation and many difficulties. These difficulties typically include oversupply of new labor force beyond demand, increase of employment problems facing college students, and greater difficulty in transfer of rural young labor force. 

According to predicted increase of new labor force in China, the population of increased labor force in the coming few years will stay at a high level of 15 million to 22 million per year, which is an excess of supply over demand and will lead to heavy employment pressure. In recent years, as higher education has been gradually popularized in China, the number of college graduates demanding employment has been climbing up. The first employment rate of them has been declining year over year, and there has been about 300,000 unemployed college graduates annually. One of the basic ways of transition of Chinese society is to accelerate urbanization. It will therefore become an inevitable trend that a huge number of young rural laborers will flow to cities and towns for employment, and the huge number will make employment a tough mission.。

Faced with the serious situation of youth employment in the future, the Chinese government is actively implementing the proactive employment policies, especially the policies and measures for youth. These policies and measures will achieve good results.