Under the dual role of sustained economic recovery and employment priority policies, China's employment situation in the first three quarters was better than expected, and the unemployment rate in urban surveys was lower than the same period before the epidemic. In the next step, China will continue to effectively reduce the burden on enterprises and make every effort to stabilize and expand employment opportunities.
Experts interviewed by First Financial Believe believe that the current employment performance is better than the economic performance, and the downward pressure of the economy in the third quarter has not been significantly transmitted to the employment field. However, small and micro enterprises and blue-collar groups with poor anti-risk ability need to be given more support, and the employment status of industries affected by economic cycles and regulations, such as real estate, education and training, also needs attention.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are an important part of China's market main body and the top priority of stabilizing employment and maintaining employment. In view of the current situation that small and medium-sized enterprises are under greater operational pressure, the executive meeting of the State Council in the past two weeks has continuously deployed policies and measures to help enterprises bail out.
On the evening of the 27th, the latest decision of the National Standing Committee was to suspend the enterprise income tax and domestic value-added tax, the domestic consumption tax and the urban construction and maintenance tax attached to the manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises in the fourth quarter of this year, as well as the individual income tax paid by individual industrial and commercial households, sole proprietorships and partnerships (excluding the personal income tax withheld and paid by them).
Employment performance was better than expected
Data from both official and private think tanks show that China's employment data in the third quarter was not affected by the decline in GDP growth. According to the data released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security at a press conference on the 27th, the completion of new employment in cities and towns across the country is faster than the progress of time series, reaching 10.45 million people from January to September, completing 95% of the target task. The unemployment rate in urban surveys across the country fell back to pre-epidemic levels, averaging 5.0% in the third quarter, down 0.2 percentage points from the same period in 2019. Among them, the urban survey unemployment rate in September was 4.9%, down 0.2 percentage points from the previous month and down 0.5 percentage points from the same period last year.
Song Xin, deputy director of the Employment Promotion Department of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said that with the continuous recovery of China's economy, the policy of reducing burdens and stabilizing posts and expanding employment continued to be implemented, all-round employment services continued to exert force, the employment situation remained generally stable and better than expected, and the recovery trend in the third quarter was more positive.
The China Employment Research Institute of Chinese University recently released the "China Job Market Prosperity Report" for the third quarter, which also shows that the CIER (China Employment Prosperity Index) in the third quarter of 2021 was 2.15, higher than 2.09 in the previous quarter and 1.89 in the same period last year.
Zeng Xiangquan, director of the China Employment Research Institute, told First Finance and Economics that compared with the same period last year, the number of recruitment demand increased, the number of job applications decreased, and the employment prosperity index rebounded significantly year-on-year.
Wang Pingping, director of the Department of Population and Employment Statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics, believes that in the first three quarters, the economic operation continued to recover and the employment situation continued to improve. In the third quarter, the youth unemployment rate rose due to the concentrated job search and employment of a large number of college graduates in the graduation season, driving the survey unemployment rate to 5.1% in July. In August, as graduates gradually found jobs, youth unemployment fell significantly, but due to the impact of the epidemic and flood disasters in many parts of the country, the unemployment rate of the main working-age population increased, and the unemployment rate in the national urban survey was the same as in July. In September, as the work of graduates was implemented and the impact of the epidemic and flood season subsided, the survey unemployment rate fell to 4.9%, down 0.2 percentage points from August.
According to the research report of CICC, since the beginning of this year, China has shown a weak economy and not weak employment. The employment performance in the first three quarters was better than the economic performance, reflecting the support brought by the employment policy and the pull of the platform economy.
Yao Jingyuan, a special researcher of the Counselor's Office of the State Council, believes that the reason why the economy has declined but the employment situation is improving is that the employment priority policy is playing an active role, and China has adopted a series of measures to stabilize employment and encourage enterprises to increase employment; second, the decline in the economy does not mean that the endogenous power of China's economy is insufficient, and China's endogenous power is still strong. For these reasons, companies respond to national policies to stabilize jobs and expectations for economic growth.
However, Yao Kai, director of the Global Science and Technology Talent Development Research Center of Fudan University, told First Finance and Economics that although through active employment policies and increased fiscal expenditures, the potential space for employment has been fully tapped, etc., the short-term economic weakness and employment are not weak. However, in the long run, only by increasing the total amount and increment of economic development can we increase the quantity and quality of jobs.
Pay attention to the job loss under industry supervision
Under the background of the overall employment situation, there are also some industries that have been affected by the economic cycle and the strengthening of supervision and the phenomenon of job loss, among which the more prominent ones are education and training, real estate industry; in addition, the government's protection of the social security rights and interests of platform enterprise employees has also led to an increase in the employment cost of platform enterprises, which will also have a certain impact on employment positions.
Zhang Chenggang, director of the China New Employment Pattern Research Center of the Capital University of Economics and Business, said that China is currently in a superposition period of post-epidemic impact and economic transformation and upgrading. At this special stage, industries that have partially benefited from economic transformation and upgrading, such as advanced manufacturing, are showing strong demand. The continued high level of international trade has driven the demand for the manufacturing industry of the processing industry to continue to rise. At the same time, in industries affected by economic transformation and upgrading, industries affected by the epidemic, and industries with policies to strengthen supervision, the employment of workers has been greatly impacted.
According to the CICC Research Report, in recent years, the market size of China's education service industry has expanded year by year, and the "double reduction" policy may bring about the adjustment of education enterprises. As of 2019, the market size of China's education service industry is 3 trillion yuan, and the K12 after-school tutoring market size is about 530 billion yuan in 2020. Among them, giant and large institutions account for 10%, and the remaining 90% of the market entities are small and medium-sized micro institutions. With the policy adjustment, education and training institutions will be transformed accordingly, and small and medium-sized micro institutions may be more affected. The positions directly affected include K12 faculty, staff, operations, sales and other positions.
China's job market sentiment report also said that in the third quarter, the number of supply and demand in the education/training/college industry has tightened significantly. Affected by the "double reduction" policy, the number of recruitment demand and job applications in the industry has declined month by month, and the number of vocational recruitment needs and job applications such as primary and secondary school teachers, tutors and academic administrators has shown a downward trend.
In the context of the tightening of real estate policies, the employment pressure in the real estate industry has increased, not only the number of employment in real estate companies is decreasing, but also affected the real estate intermediary industry, recently, a number of intermediary brands have fallen into the closure of stores, layoffs, head companies such as shells have not been spared.
The platform economy and flexible employment development provide workers with more employment options, and are the main source of the rapid growth of new jobs in China's cities and towns, and the rapid development of new formats and new models has led to the increase of new jobs. Since the beginning of this year, the rapid development of live streaming and online shopping has also led to an increase in the number of employees in related industries.
Improving the social security rights and interests of flexible employees is an important task in expanding the coverage of social security this year. On July 16, seven departments jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Implementing the Responsibilities of Online Catering Platforms and Effectively Safeguarding the Rights and Interests of Takeaway Delivery Workers", urging platforms and third-party cooperative units to participate in social insurance for takeaway delivery workers who have established labor relations, and supporting other takeaway delivery workers to participate in social insurance. If the platform enterprise implements this document, it will increase the employment cost of the platform to a certain extent, and the impact of this policy on the employment position of the platform needs to be continued to be observed.
Small and micro enterprises are still under pressure
Zeng Xiangquan said that the impact of the decline in economic growth on small and micro enterprises needs to be further paid attention to, and the number of recruitment needs of small and micro enterprises in the third quarter fell by nearly 20% year-on-year, and the employment prosperity index was also lower than the same period last year.
Zhang Chenggang said that the current operating pressure on small and medium-sized enterprises is still relatively large. Small and medium-sized enterprises are the main body of employment. At present, the operation of small and medium-sized enterprises is under pressure, the profit margin is low, and the demand for recruitment has not yet recovered, which may have a certain impact on future employment.
CICC also said that individual industrial and commercial households, small and micro enterprises are facing operational and employment pressures after the epidemic. As of 2021, there are more than 95 million individual industrial and commercial households in China, and the scale of employment has exceeded 200 million. These individual industrial and commercial households are concentrated in offline service industries, including wholesale and retail (49.2%), accommodation and catering (23.8%), and resident services (8.2%). The operation of the offline service industry has been continuously affected by the epidemic, and small and medium-sized enterprises have shown a pattern of oversupply of labor.
On October 20, the executive meeting of the State Council pointed out that the protection of market entities such as small and medium-sized enterprises is to protect employment, which is also conducive to increasing supply and stabilizing prices. It is necessary to take multiple measures and take targeted measures to increase the intensity of assistance to enterprises to bail out. Prevent commodity price increases from being transmitted to downstream industries to make small and medium-sized enterprises bear cost pressure, pay close attention to studying inclusive policies including phased tax reductions and fee reductions, and encourage local governments to support small and medium-sized enterprises in reducing housing rents, water and electricity bills, etc., reduce the burden on enterprises, and help tide over difficulties. Promote the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in the direction of "specialization and special innovation" to enhance market competitiveness.
Song Xin said that in the next step, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security will take the implementation of the "14th Five-Year Plan" employment promotion plan as the traction to ensure the overall stability of the employment situation. Specifically, the first thing is to make every effort to stabilize the post. We should do a good job in the implementation of policies such as reducing the burden and stabilizing the post and expanding the employment, effectively reduce the burden on enterprises, and stabilize and expand employment.
Wang Pingping said that stable employment still needs precise efforts, and efforts should be made from both the labor market demand and the supply side to ensure the stability of the employment situation. Continue to implement various policies to stabilize employment, support enterprises to stabilize jobs, promote entrepreneurship to drive employment, and expand employment channels; strengthen precise assistance to key groups such as college graduates to improve the quality of employment services; implement the "Skills China Action" to improve the skill quality of workers through large-scale vocational skills training.
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