Discuss the unemployment problem at the present stage in China (political and economic socialist part)

I. The Present Situation of Unemployment in China's Towns and Cities

In recent years, with the rapid growth of China's economy, the problem of unemployment in China's towns and cities has become more and more prominent. The number of unemployed people is on the rise year by year. The number of registered unemployed in China's cities and towns, from 352.2 million in 1991, grew to 8.27 million by the end of 2004. in February 2005, the National Development and Reform Commission, in conjunction with other departments **** with the release of the "2006 Employment Problems and Policy Recommendations," shows that in 2006, the unemployed will reach 8.4 million people. Zeng Yanbo, an associate researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Institute for Research on Youth, said in an interview with China Economic Weekly, "In addition, the current unemployment statistics do not include the 5 million laid-off workers, because even though they have no job and no income, they are still employees of the enterprise and have not terminated their labor contracts with the enterprise. If "laid-off" and "unemployed" are fully integrated in the future, the two groups of people will be counted together, and then our unemployment rate will be even higher." At present, unemployment has become the most prominent problem in our society and economy at this stage.

Two, the causes of unemployment in China's cities and towns

(I) Total causes

The long-term supply of China's total labor force exceeds demand, which is the basic reason for the existence of unemployment in China. Due to the mistakes of our population policy in the past, the total new population in China has been expanding, and the proportion of the working population has been increasing. After the late 1970s increased family planning efforts, China's natural population growth rate has gradually declined, but due to population inertia, the huge population base so that China's net population increase and labor supply increase in absolute terms is still maintained at a high level; and, the total population of the reasons for China's unemployment in the short term there will be no major improvement.

(B) the quality of labor force

China's labor force is large in number, but the overall quality is not high, the skills of workers and jobs required skills asymmetry phenomenon is becoming more and more pronounced, many new industries, emerging types of work shortage of talent, this situation in the state-owned enterprises in the process of unemployed re-employment is particularly prominent. Caused by the low quality of China's labor force is the root cause of insufficient investment in education.

(C) the impact of economic restructuring

With the progress of science and technology, economic and social development, industrial structure, ownership structure is bound to continue to adjust. Firstly, from the point of view of the adjustment of industrial structure, when the economy is in the stage of rapid development, it must be accompanied by the rapid adjustment of industrial structure, new pillar industries continue to emerge, and the old industries continue to be eliminated. Secondly, from the point of view of ownership structure, along with the non-public economy in China's total economy occupies a larger and larger proportion, the jobs will have to be transferred from state-owned enterprises to non-state-owned enterprises. State-owned enterprises dominate our national economy, but their ability to absorb labor is not strong. Then the non-state economy must be involved, but a part of the working age, due to the employment concept is not willing to enter the non-state enterprises, and thus for the unemployed.

(iv) The impact of technological progress

"The machine rejects the worker" has always been regarded as an important phenomenon in capitalist society. In fact, in socialism, especially under the conditions of socialist market economy, the phenomenon of "technology excludes workers" exists all the time, because the socialist economy is a modernized economy of mass production, and the efforts to improve the social productive forces and vigorously develop the high-tech industry are the objective requirements for the development of socialist production. With the development of high-tech industries, the number of labor absorbed by the same capital is obviously reduced, so that, under the premise of no substantial increase in new investment, the total amount of capital will not increase the number of jobs provided by the society, but rather reduce the number of unemployed people will inevitably increase. In addition, technological progress also triggers the generation of unemployed people by promoting the adjustment of industrial structure. With the progress of science and technology, some new industrial sectors rise rapidly, some old industrial sectors are gradually eliminated, the eliminated industrial sectors free a large number of laborers, while those new industrial sectors require a large number of laborers to be employed, due to the different requirements of technical quality, the laborers who are free from the laborers can not be completely or even most of them into the new industrial sectors. At the same time, the traditional industrial sectors retained, due to the update of technology and equipment, labor productivity, but also will inevitably have a part of the workers are unemployed. And the faster the progress of science and technology, the faster the adjustment of industrial structure changes, containing the traditional old technology of enterprises and sectors in the market, the less competitive, the exclusion and the number of unemployed will be more.

(E) The impact of macroeconomic cyclical fluctuations

China is still in the period of economic system transition, but the cyclical changes in the market economy has begun to appear. During the stage of economic expansion, China's employment problem can be alleviated to a certain extent. The reason for this is that due to the investment drive, the market demand is strong, the enterprise production is sufficient, not only to make the enterprise hidden unemployment reduction, and often can also expand some formal and temporary workers. At the same time, with the growth of investment, the construction industry needs to recruit a large number of construction workers from the countryside, thus also reducing the surplus labor force in the countryside. However, in the stage of economic contraction, investment decline, weak market demand, resulting in enterprise product backlog, formal workers laid off, a large number of temporary workers recruited from the countryside and construction workers have to return to the countryside, at this time, hidden and visible unemployment will increase, coupled with China's accession to the WTO, the products of foreign enterprises will increase the impact of China's market, which will increase the pressure on China's employment, resulting in the unemployment figures continue to increase.

(F) the impact of the concept of employment

In the planned economy, China's long-term implementation of the "turnkey" employment system, resulting in a part of the unemployed people's concept of stereotypes, affecting their re-employment. For example, the "wait, rely, want" idea formed during the planned economy is still y rooted, thinking that only government placement is considered employment, which leads to some unemployed people's initiative to seek self-employment is not strong, preferring to rely on the state, the enterprise to allocate the basic cost of living barely, but also do not want to actively participate in the competition of the job market. Another example is the "iron rice bowl system" formed during the period of the planned economy, which created a large number of workers with an "iron rice bowl concept". This "iron rice bowl concept" is reflected in the field of employment, where there is a mindset that "emphasizes state ownership, emphasizes collectives, and dislikes the individual," believing that only work in state-owned economic units is considered employment, which leads to some unemployed people being unwilling to work in private, individual, and other non-state-owned economic units, and becoming voluntarily unemployed; this is reflected in the fact that some unemployed people are unwilling to work in private, individual, and other non-state-owned economic units. This has led to the reluctance of some unemployed people to work in private, individual and other non-state-owned economic units, and their voluntary unemployment; in terms of the form of employment, they believe that only long-term and stable jobs can be considered as employment, and thus they are reluctant to engage in some new forms of employment, such as temporary jobs, part-time jobs, hourly jobs and so on.

In summary, the causes of unemployment in China are multifaceted and multilevel, including the problems of streaming and layoffs left over from the former planned economic system and triggered by the current system reform, as well as structural unemployment under the industrial structural adjustment, and new employment problems caused by the demographic reasons of our country, and so on. Multifaceted, multi-level understanding of the causes of unemployment will help us formulate targeted policies to better solve the unemployment problem according to the different causes of unemployment.

Three policy measures to combat unemployment in China's cities and towns

1. Strengthening publicity and education to change the concept of career choice is the ideological basis for combating unemployment

The concept of career choice formed under the long-standing planned economic system has seriously affected the solution of the unemployment problem. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen publicity and education, through a variety of publicity methods, as soon as possible to help the unemployed to recognize the situation, face the reality, rather than complaining, pessimism and disappointment, to help the unemployed to improve their ideological understanding, which is the ideological basis for the management of the unemployment problem. First, we must realize that unemployment is inevitable under the conditions of a market economy, and that unemployment is inevitable and long-term. Unemployment exists in all market economy countries, only the unemployment rate is high or low, China is gradually establishing a socialist market economy system, of course, is no exception. Secondly, we should realize that the market allocation of labor resources is characterized by "mobility", and we should learn to look for opportunities in mobility. This will motivate workers to update their knowledge and improve their quality. In a sense, unemployment is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather an opportunity to start a new business. Thirdly, it is important to realize that labour surplus is relative and employment opportunities are everlasting. The current employment problem is both total and structural, and there are many new areas of employment to be further developed. Unemployed people choose their jobs, the key is to change their concepts, open their minds, and liberalize their horizons. To gradually establish the concept of the market, the concept of competition, the concept of risk, the concept of labor is glorious; to not be humble, do not wait, do not rely on, do not pick and choose, as long as the hard work of learning, and actively enterprising, and rapidly improve their own qualities, will be able to break into a new world of employment.

2. Vigorously develop education and training, especially to develop vocational and technical education, and improve the scientific and cultural quality of workers and vocational and technical level.

Currently, to strengthen vocational and technical training, improve the skills of workers, has become an important one of the anti-unemployment measures in many countries around the world; from the above analysis can also be seen, the overall quality of the labor force is also one of the important reasons for unemployment in China, the structural unemployment caused by the technological progress in our country appears to be particularly prominent. Therefore, vigorously developing education, especially vocational and technical education, and improving the scientific and cultural quality and vocational and technical level of the labor force are of particular significance in reducing the number of unemployed people, especially those who are structurally unemployed as a result of technological progress. In order to make vocational training in China more effective, we need to establish a new type of training system with a complete system and standardized and efficient operation. First of all, we should set up the concept of lifelong education, formulate a long-term plan for vocational training, and give corresponding institutional guarantees in the form of laws and regulations, so as to regularize and institutionalize employee training. Secondly, according to the needs of the current employment situation, the focus at this stage should be on the establishment and improvement of the labor preparation system and the development of re-employment training. Practice at home and abroad has shown that re-employment training is a positive labor market policy that can effectively solve the problem of re-employment for the unemployed, and that it is much more positive than measures such as simply granting unemployment benefits and subsistence allowances to the unemployed. Therefore, the State should allocate a portion of the unemployment benefits to the employment retraining of the unemployed, so that unemployment benefits and employment promotion can be combined. Thirdly, it should actively open up channels for raising funds for training, increase investment in manpower, expand the scope of vocational training, and ensure the long-term and institutionalized nature of training in terms of funding.

3. Maintaining moderately rapid economic growth and coordinating economic growth with employment growth

Theoretically speaking, with little change in technological conditions, a certain amount of labor input combined with the corresponding capital drives the economy to grow at a certain rate; in turn, a certain rate of economic growth requires a certain amount of labor input, i.e., the creation of a certain number of employment opportunities. Generally speaking, there is a negative correlation between the unemployment rate and the economic growth rate. On the one hand, there is a positive correlation between the economic growth rate and the employment growth rate, on the other hand, in recent years, China's economic growth process has shown a downward trend in employment growth, presenting the characteristics of "growth, no employment". This shows that the employment-absorbing capacity of China's economic growth is declining, and that the role of economic growth in the growth of employment and the expansion of employment opportunities is becoming more and more limited. This requires us not to unilaterally emphasize the role of economic growth in increasing employment, but also to focus on the choice of economic growth model to coordinate economic growth with employment growth. At this stage, the choice of mode is preferable to the choice of speed, and only at the appropriate economic growth rate under the economic growth mode can we realize the virtuous circle of economic growth and employment growth. According to our country's "comparative advantage" and the severe employment situation, it is decided that our country should choose the growth mode of employment creation. Therefore, according to China's national conditions, we should vigorously develop labor-intensive production, including the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, the development of tertiary industry, the development of the individual private economy, the formulation of relevant policies to promote its development, and further open up the market of the service industry, and actively attract foreign investment to create more employment opportunities; give full play to China's advantage of low cost of labor, and encourage the export of labor-intensive products; pay close attention to the efficiency of the utilization of resources, and use limited resources to absorb more labor and create more employment opportunities. resources to absorb more labor and create greater output.

4. Increase economic restructuring efforts to increase jobs

The irrational economic structure is a deep-rooted contradiction and problem facing China's economic operation. It is not only the main reason for restricting economic growth and the decline in the efficiency of state-owned enterprises, but also an important reason for generating a large number of unemployed people. Therefore, in order to create a good re-employment environment for the unemployed, it is necessary to intensify structural adjustment and strive for a breakthrough in structural adjustment. Firstly, in terms of ownership structure, it is necessary to adopt a positive and encouraging policy to support the development of the non-public economy, such as the individual and private sectors, so as to increase the capacity to absorb labor force employment. Second, in terms of industrial structure, while adjusting and reforming the processing industry and promoting basic industries, we should vigorously develop the tertiary industry, especially the labor-intensive tertiary industry, so as to create more employment opportunities. From the experience of various countries, in the tertiary industry, the community and personal service industry is the field that absorbs the most labor force, and the proportion of this in developed countries is generally 40%-50% at present, while in China's tertiary industry, at present, the employees of the community and personal service industry only account for about 20%, and the potential for development is still quite large. Thirdly, in terms of enterprise structure, it is necessary to actively support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises while deepening the reform of large-scale state-owned enterprises and creating a number of enterprise groups with strong market competitiveness, so as to facilitate the solution of the employment problem in China.

5. Strengthen the construction of the labor market and improve the employment service system

The establishment of a unified, open, competitive and orderly labor market is an objective requirement for the development of the socialist market economy. The more standardized and transparent the labor market is, and the more active the exchanges are, the more conducive to the participation of all kinds of labor in open, fair and orderly competition, which is conducive to the regulation of labor supply and demand and the promotion of labor and employment. China's current labor market is still very unsound, the government must make greater efforts to remove those who divide the market impede the flow of factors of excessive intervention, to create a kind of urban and rural people and labor force for all equal competition in the labor market, such a market for the unemployed to create equal competition for job-seeking opportunities, but also to the formation of the external pressure on the employment of the competition for laid-off workers, forcing them to change the concept of employment, and actively face the market! At the same time, it also creates conditions for employers to hire talents on the basis of merit, which is conducive to the creation of labor demand. In order to build a labor market, it is necessary to strengthen and improve the network of job placement services, enhance vocational guidance and training in changing occupations and jobs, and reduce re-employment difficulties caused by poor information. Cities above the middle level should accelerate the realization of municipal labor supply and demand information computer networking, and actively promote the construction of intra-regional, inter-regional and even national unified information network to improve the operational efficiency of the labor market.