Chen Yun: Coordinating Policies and Working Together to Stabilize Employment
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that employment is the most foundational aspect of the people’s livelihood; it concerns the immediate interests of the masses, the healthy development of the economy and society, and the long-term peace and stability of the country. Promoting high-quality full employment is the new positioning and new mission of employment work in the New Era and on the new journey. On April 25 of this year, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee convened a meeting to analyze and study the current economic situation and economic work. The meeting pointed out that it is necessary to adhere to the general principle of seeking progress while maintaining stability, focusing on stabilizing employment, stabilizing enterprises, stabilizing the market, and stabilizing expectations, so as to respond to the uncertainty of sharp changes in the external environment with the certainty of high-quality development. This is a policy decision and deployment made by the Party Central Committee based on a scientific assessment of the economic and employment situation for the current and forthcoming period.
I. The employment situation is generally stable, but pressure cannot be ignored
In the face of a complex and volatile domestic and international situation, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, all regions and departments have resolutely implemented the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council. They have gone all out to stabilize and protect employment, maintaining general stability in the employment situation. In terms of employment growth, from January to June 2025, there were 6.95 million new urban jobs nationwide, achieving 58% of the annual target of 12 million new urban jobs; employment growth is consistent with the scheduled progress. In terms of unemployment levels, in the first half of the year, the average surveyed urban unemployment rate nationwide was 5.2%, basically flat compared to the previous year. Looking at the trend, it is stabilizing with a downward tilt; in the second quarter, the national surveyed urban unemployment rate was 5.0%, a decrease of 0.3 percentage points from the first quarter. Regarding corporate labor demand, the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) and the Non-Manufacturing Business Activity Index have maintained generally stable operations. From January to June, the average employee indices for manufacturing and non-manufacturing were 48.1 and 45.9 respectively. Other monitoring data from relevant enterprises also indicate that although corporate hiring is weakening, it remains basically stable, with no large-scale concentrated layoffs occurring.
However, it must also be seen that the foundation for our country’s continuous economic recovery and improvement still needs further consolidation. The impact of external shocks is increasing, and employment pressure cannot be ignored. China’s employment development faces many uncertain factors in the international environment, while the domestic economic structure is undergoing continuous adjustment. The conversion of old kinetic energy into new kinetic energy [1] is at a critical stage of breaking through and gaining momentum. Under the influence of the complex domestic and international environment, labor market demand has declined, the risk of potential unemployment across industries, regions, and groups has increased, structural contradictions have become prominent, and employment pressure continues to accumulate. This is prominently manifested in: First, a slowdown in employment growth. In the first half of the year, new urban employment decreased year-on-year, and recruitment demand in the labor market declined; labor market demand in some industries and regions with a high degree of dependence on exports to the United States has been suppressed to a certain extent. Second, increased employment pressure on certain groups. It has become more difficult for urban unemployed persons and persons with employment difficulties to find re-employment. The employment pressure on youth, with college graduates as the focus, remains unabated, and the surveyed unemployment rate for urban youth remains at a relatively high level. Third, enterprises are becoming increasingly cautious in hiring, and labor market flexibility is increasing. Flexible employment acts as a "regulator" and a "reservoir" [2] for the labor market, but the expansion of the scale of flexible employment increases market instability.
II. The major strategic significance of stabilizing employment under the new situation
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that employment is the greatest livelihood project, people-centered project, and foundational project. Under the new situation, the Party Central Committee has once again placed "stabilizing employment" at the forefront of the "Four Stabilities," [3] highlighting the priority status of stabilizing employment within the overall work layout. This has strong practical relevance and great significance.
Highlighting the stabilization of employment is conducive to constructing an employment-friendly development mode. Employment links the economy with the people's livelihood. A stable employment situation can provide time and space for industrial upgrading and the transformation of economic development models, providing strong support for high-quality development. Stabilizing employment is conducive to the complete, accurate, and comprehensive implementation of the New Development Philosophy, better realizing the benign interaction between economic development and employment growth, and constructing an employment-friendly development mode to guarantee and improve people's lives through development. This can avoid the phenomenon of "jobless growth" where policy formulation and work practice emphasize economic growth while neglecting the improvement of people's livelihoods, or prioritize capital- and technology-intensive industries in the development mode while neglecting traditional labor-intensive industries.
Highlighting the stabilization of employment is conducive to consolidating the foundation for social governance that is both stable and orderly yet full of vitality. Employment is both an economic barometer and a social stabilizer. Promoting employment and preventing unemployment are important components of the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. Especially under conditions of a tightening economic environment and increasing employment pressure, we must increase the intensity of employment policy support. We must improve the employment assistance systems for groups newly entering the labor market, such as the vast number of college graduates, as well as employment-challenged groups such as the labor force lifted out of poverty, the long-term unemployed, and persons with disabilities. Stabilizing the employment of all types of workers, preventing large-scale unemployment, reducing unemployment and poverty, and fortifying the bottom line of social safety are important ways to maintain stable and safe economic operation and achieve social stability and order.
Highlighting the stabilization of employment is conducive to responding to external shocks and gaining advantages in international competition. Currently, international political and economic contradictions are prominent, geopolitical conflicts occur frequently, and world economic uncertainty is increasing. The resulting direct and indirect impacts on China's economy and employment cannot be ignored. In the increasingly fierce competition between major powers and the reconstruction of the world economic order, we must respond to various uncertainties and potential risks by firmly establishing the principle of employment priority. Maintaining the basic stability of China's employment situation and promoting high-quality full employment in a large country of over 1.4 billion people is conducive to maintaining strategic resolve [4] and winning new competitive advantages. At the same time, it is conducive to enhancing China’s international discourse power [5] and dominance in the international labor field and maintaining initiative in our work.
III. Coordinating measures to achieve high-quality full employment
The issue of employment involves all aspects of economic and social development and is affected by various complex factors. It is necessary to unswervingly implement the policy of "workers finding their own jobs, the market regulating employment, the government promoting employment, and encouraging entrepreneurship." We must fully mobilize and give play to the enthusiasm of the market, government, society, and workers, coordinating measures and working together with one heart to stabilize the employment situation and promote high-quality full employment.
Focusing on tapping and expanding job capacity to enlarge employment opportunities from multiple aspects. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that we must unswervingly implement the New Development Philosophy, more consciously regard high-quality full employment as a priority goal of economic and social development, and make the process of high-quality development a process of improving the quality and expanding the capacity of employment, thereby increasing the employment-driving force of development. Cultivating and expanding new employment growth points during economic development is the fundamental way to achieve stable employment. We must vigorously promote the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, coordinating the development of traditional, emerging, and future industries to improve the economy's capacity to absorb employment. We should increase efforts to tap and expand potential in key areas, key industries, urban and rural grassroots levels, and small, medium, and micro-enterprises, supporting the employment and entrepreneurship of key groups and clarifying the key directions for implementing job development plans. Surrounding the development of new quality productive forces, the creation of new consumption hotspots, the implementation of key engineering projects, and the provision of basic livelihood services, we should introduce incentive policies and increase the release of job positions. We should implement job development plans for emerging and future industries, establishing a linked service system for them involving job collection and storage, specialized skills training, human resources services, and employment policy support. We should implement the "Artificial Intelligence+" job creation action to promote the integrated development of AI with high-end manufacturing and modern service industries to create more employment opportunities. We should promote the development of life services industries such as cultural tourism, sports and fitness, and elderly care, creating new economic growth points and expanding new employment space while guaranteeing and improving the people's livelihood.
Increasing investment in people and implementing large-scale skills training actions to enhance workers' capacity for sustainable development. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that we must increase investment in people, attach great importance to the training of migrant workers, vocational farmers, and retired military personnel, and provide timely skills retraining for laid-off and unemployed persons so that workers can better adapt to the changed market environment. Under the current situation, we must push more funds and resources to be "invested in people" and serve the people's livelihood, promoting residents' income increase and burden reduction, supporting employment expansion, and forming a benign cycle of economic development and livelihood improvement. We should carry out large-scale vocational skills training actions, deeply implement the "Skills Light the Way Forward" action, and strive to expand the scale of skills training and increase the participation rate of employees, achieving full coverage of labor groups and entire professional careers. We must adhere to an employment-oriented direction for vocational skills training, focusing on innovating training systems and mechanisms, integrating departmental functions and training resources, and coordinating the use of various training funds. Training content, modes, and methods must be updated, and while expanding the volume of training, more attention must be paid to improving training quality. We should promote a "four-in-one" project-based training model of "job demand + skills training + skills evaluation + employment services," implement differentiated subsidy support, and promote a better link between training and employment and income increase. Specialized training should be carried out for fields such as artificial intelligence, the digital economy, the silver economy [6], the green economy, and the low-altitude economy. For enterprises greatly affected by technological updates, production line equipment replacement, product innovation, market adjustments, and tariff policies, we should organize on-the-job training and job-transfer training to maintain the stability of workers' employment and the sustainability of their career development.
Strengthening service guarantees, highlighting employment assistance and "bottom-line" protection for key groups. For groups such as college graduates, migrant workers, the labor force lifted out of poverty, employment-challenged persons, and the long-term unemployed, when market mechanisms find it difficult to solve employment, we must strengthen the employment guarantee function of public policies and the intensity of public employment services for "bottom-line" assistance. We must accelerate the implementation of the "Opinions on Further Improving the Public Employment Service System" issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and other departments, as well as relevant measures for the employment of 2025 college graduates and other youth. We must further improve a public employment service system that is equal and inclusive, fully functional, precise in assistance, solid in its foundation, and empowered by digital technology, providing local and nearby public employment services for urban and rural workers and employers. Adhering to the principle of active employment protection, we should incorporate workers into the labor process by expanding "work-relief" programs [7] and developing public welfare jobs, encouraging and supporting them to obtain livelihood security through labor. We should organize and mobilize public employment service agencies and human resource service enterprises to organize special recruitment fairs and targeted job placements to help workers transfer jobs. We should expand channels for outward labor migration and local employment, increase support for work-relief programs, and explore the use of special treasury bonds for work-relief projects. The scope of work-relief should be expanded from engineering construction to fields such as livelihood and social services, promoting the employment and income increase of migrant workers and stabilizing the employment scale of 30 million people who have been lifted out of poverty. Employment assistance for people in difficulty must be reinforced to firmly hold the "bottom line" of employment for vulnerable groups.
Earnestly strengthening the protection of labor rights and interests and focusing on enhancing risk early-warning and prevention capabilities in the employment field. We must establish a more reasonable income distribution system, stabilize and effectively increase the income of low-income groups, and steadily expand the size of the middle-income group. We must improve the mechanisms for determining workers' wages, achieving reasonable growth, and guaranteeing payment. We should increase the intensity and precision of adjustments through taxation, social security, and transfer payments. The social security system must be improved, perfecting social insurance systems for flexible employees, migrant workers, and personnel in new forms of employment, and expanding the coverage of unemployment, work injury, and maternity insurance. We must improve the mechanism for the rational mobility of workers and guarantee equal employment rights. Unreasonable restrictions and employment discrimination based on region, identity, gender, or age that affect equal employment must be eliminated. We should strengthen labor protection oversight and law enforcement, intensifying the governance of chaos such as wage and social security arrears, excessive overtime, illegal layoffs, and job-seeking traps, so as to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of workers in terms of labor remuneration, rest and vacation, labor safety, skills training, social insurance, and welfare. Corporate social responsibility should be strengthened; employment quality factors such as salary levels, occupational health, and training investment should be integrated into corporate evaluation systems and linked with tax incentives and government procurement qualifications. We must strengthen monitoring, early warning, policy reserves, and emergency response in the employment field. Adhering to bottom-line thinking [8], we should formulate contingency plans for responding to major external risk shocks. For key regions, industries, and enterprises that apply intelligence and automation on a large scale, we must strengthen the monitoring of job changes. For the employment difficulties of older and low-skilled workers brought about by transformation and upgrading, we should formulate diversion and resettlement plans, implementing "employment guarantee plans" when necessary to provide bottom-line assistance.
(The author is the Director and Researcher of the Employment and Entrepreneurship Office of the Chinese Academy of Labour and Social Security)
Source: Qiushi Column (Hongqi Wengao), Issue 14, 2025