On October 14, 2016, China Institute for Employment Research successfully held 2016 Third Quarterly Review of Employment in China at Room 347 of Qiushi Building, in RUC. Wu Jie, Chief of Population and Employment Statistics Department, National Bureau of Statistics, Guo Cheng, Director of Employment Promotion Department, National Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Li Qiang, Marketing Communications Director of Zhilian Zhao Pin, Hao Jianbin, Employment Research Director of Alibaba Group, Ge Ling, General manager of the Department of government affairs of 58.com, Yao Ming, Data Analyst of 58.com, Xue Yan, senior researcher of Didi Chuxing policy institution, attended the meeting at invitation. Professor Yang Weiguo, Dean of the School of Labor and Human Resources of Renmin University of China, Professor Zeng Xiangquan, Director of CIER, Professor Zhao Zhong, teachers and researchers including Ding Dajian, Geng Lin, Tu Yongqian, Hao Yuming, Zhang Chenggang and Shi Zhenzhen also participated in the meeting. The meeting was chaired by Associate Professor Ge Yuhao, Researcher of CIER, Associate Professor of SLHR.

In the theme report stage, CIER deputy researcher Geng Lin made the CIER report with the theme of "Analysis of Employment Situation in the Third Quarter of 2016 - Based on Zhilian Zhaopin Network Data". The study shows that with the landing of "supply side reform" policy, as well as the development of new economic industry, macroeconomic indicators have rebounded in the third quarter of 2016, also led to a slight increase in the number of enterprises in the labor market recruitment. At the same time, due to the cyclical factors, the number of job applicants in the same period dropped to a certain extent, making CIER index 2.22, which matched with the forecast of the previous quarter CIER index. Excluding the long-term trend and seasonal factors of the CIER index, it was found that the cyclical component of the CIER index had obvious signs of stabilizing, in line with the macroeconomic climate in the third quarter. In the trend component of the CIER index, it has a long-term upward trend because the labor market in China has generally reversed from "supply is greater than demand" to "demand is greater than supply". On the whole, compared to the previous quarter, CIER index rebounded significantly this quarter, the overall employment situation stabilized for the better. The forecast based on CIER index shows that the fourth quarter of 2016 CIER index will show an upward trend.

As for sub-sectors, the second quarter of 2016 and the third quarter of 2016 industry CIER index rankings have little change. Overall, in the process of the domestic economic structure transformation, the polarization phenomenon of employment between different sectors is still obvious. The best-performing industry is still Internet / e-commerce with a CIER index of 7.28, the industry's leading position. While the energy / mining / mining / smelting industry CIER index is still the smallest 0.20, indicating that with the implementation of " cutting excessive industrial capacity " policy in the coal, steel industry, the employment situation is still relatively serious in related industries. Specifically, the employment climate index of the Internet / e-commerce, insurance, fund / securities, transportation and intermediary services industries is relatively high, indicating that the employment situation in these industries is relatively good; insurance, intermediary services industry CIER index is higher because the working conditions of these industries and wage pay are less attractive to job seekers, the number of job seekers is insufficient and thus reflects a higher employment climate index ; traditional manufacturing industries such as energy / mining / mining / smelting, inspection / inspection / certification, printing / packaging / paper making, environmental protection and petroleum / petrochemical / chemical industries are affected by the downward pressure of current economic slowdown and the challenges of transformation and transformation. The demand for talent recruitment significantly reduced, resulting in a less favorable employment environment. In the third quarter of 2016, the job market sentiment index was higher among the skilled workers / operators, transportation services, sales, translation and securities / futures / investment management / services. With the rapid development of the new economic industry, the demand for the related logistics, Internet financial practitioners was led to increase, these occupations also reflect a better employment situation. However, there are obvious differences in the job requirements, which are reflected in relatively high CIER index, because skilled workers / operatives, sales and translation are mostly basic occupations, the job contents and working conditions are less attractive to job seekers. Environmental science / environmental protection, chemical industry, production management / operation, advertising / exhibition and project management had a low CIER index. Among them, the supply of professionals in environmental science, environmental protection, advertising / exhibition and project management is sufficient, while the employment demand is limited, so the employment situation is relatively tight; chemical industry, production management / operation and other industries are subject to the pressure of traditional manufacturing and heavy industry restructuring and the impact of the reform and upgrading, resulting in the overall decline of these professional recruitment demand, the CIER index is low.

As for sub-regional, compared with the previous quarter, in the third quarter of 2016, the number of demand in all regions have increased significantly, the number of administrative regions have a certain degree of decline in the number of applications and CIER index chain have increased. Among them, the CIER index of the sample cities in the east, middle and west regions is relatively high, all above 1.5, indicating that the demand for employment in these areas is slightly larger than the number of job applicants, and the employment situation is relatively good; the CIER index of the sample cities in the northeast is 1.40 on average, which is still relatively low compared to other regions. With the landing of "cutting excessive industrial capacity " policy in the coal, steel heavy industry, and the gradual recovery of economic growth, the employment situation in the northeastern region is expected to improve. From the tier of cities, compared with the previous quarter, the CIER index of the first-tier cities increased by 0.19, and the average CIER index increased by more than 0.50 in the other cities. Among them, the CIER index of the first-tier sample cities is lower than 1. The CIER index of new first, second and third tier cities is higher than 1, especially in the second and third tier cities, with an average of about 2 positions corresponding to one job applicant, indicating that there is a large gap between the recruitment needs in the second and third tier cities and the employment situation is relatively good. From the scale of enterprises, in the third quarter of 2016, the CIER index of small and medium-sized enterprises is close to 1, and the CIER index of large enterprises and micro-enterprises is higher than 1, which indicates that the employment situation is relatively good in this quarter. From the nature of enterprises, compared with the previous quarter, except for the demand of wholly foreign-owned enterprises declined, the demand of other enterprises increased to a certain extent. Specifically, the CIER index of state-owned enterprises, joint-stock enterprises and private enterprises were slightly larger than 1 in this quarter, while the CIER index of other types of enterprises were less than 1.

Zhang Xiaoguang, Director of the Human Resources Research and Development Center of Suzhou Industrial Park, gave a speech with the theme of "Human Resources in the Third Quarter of 2016 in Suzhou Industrial Park". He first analyzed the human resource index and market data in the third quarter of 2016. According to the Suzhou Industrial Park Human Resource Index System, in this quarter, the human resources demand increased significantly, showing a rebound since the fourth quarter of last year and it is expected that the enterprise demand situation in the second half will be better than last year's level. Affected by the economic environment, job seekers confidence and seasonal factors, the decline in human resources market supply is more obvious and the market supply is expected to continue to decline. As the narrowing of the market supply and the increase of business demand, the overall match index showed a further downward trend, suggesting that there will be some pressure for the employment of enterprises in this region. The analysis for human resources market characteristics and the employment situation of graduates in the third quarter shows that: (1) The employment demand of enterprise employment was stabilized and employment demand of high-tech industry was strong. (2) The recruitment demand of small enterprises increased more on year-on-year basis, the recruitment cost of enterprises increased stability; (3) The recruitment is difficult, due to the large employee mobility; (4) In this quarter, it showed a more robust demand for graduates’ recruitment (5) Cloud computing, nanotechnology applications and other high-tech industry and modern service industry are still the main force to absorb fresh graduates.

Associate Professor Ge Yuhao, Researcher of CIER, Associate Professor of SLHR, gave a lecture with the theme of "Research on Employment Absorption and Driving Capability of Alibaba Retail Electronic Commerce Platform". In the context of slowing GDP growth and dropping investment drivers, China's total employment in the labor market has been generally stable and even slightly higher. According to statistics, since 2004, the average annual new employment in these 12 years is 1,875,800, The employment growth rate of the third industry is particularly obvious with the average annual increase of 8.19 million. Only in 2015, there were more than 14.75 million new employments. At the same time, in recent years, the registered urban unemployment rate remained at 4.10%. The rapid development of internet technology, the rise of large-scale e-commerce, has become "steadily" phenomenon of the main promoter for employment. The group believes that the impact of internet technology and e-commerce on employment is mainly reflected in the following aspects: (1) Technological progress to bring about the death and birth of employment. The impact of technological progress on employment is positive and negative, and its "positive effect" is usually greater than "negative effects." (2) The technology arises new format, that is, e-commerce services. At present, China's e-commerce services industry has formed six stable service categories. (3) Internet platform become a new carrier of employment. The work management of computer technology and the credit payment technology greatly reduces transaction costs, making a "without company" working trend. There is no longer a necessary relationship between work and employment, and non-employment is the main form of employment for the shared economy. (4) E-commerce brought employment promotion effect, which included: creating new forms of employment; blurring the boundaries of work and occupation; creating undifferentiated employment opportunities.

In order to prove the assumption that "Taobao as the representative of the e-commerce can explain the 'economic growth slows down, employment increases steadily' phenomenon," the research group uses the structure that are reflected from the input-output table to measure the employment opportunities that Taobao has created. The results show that in 2015 Taobao created 30.83 million jobs, including 11.76 million transaction-based employment opportunities, 19.07 million driven employment opportunities (including 4.18 million supporting jobs and 14.89 million derived employment opportunity); employment driven coefficient is 1.62. In the 26 categories of Taobao, clothing, footwear, textiles (4 million), daily necessities (1.91 million), grain, oil, food, beverages, alcoholic drinks and tobacco (690,000) created the most trade-oriented jobs. In order to increase the reliability of Taobao's measurement of the driven employment opportunities, the research group adopted a micro-case approach in combination with field research to promote the development of sales opportunities by visiting a number of shops in four provinces of Jiangsu, Hangzhou, Hebei and Shandong, verifying the conclusions drawn by the measurement from two dimensions - total employment driven by sales and employment driven coefficient.

Yao Ming, Data Analyst of 58.com made a theme report entitled " The employment trends of new blue-collar - post 90s ". Survey shows that in China's job market, the population of blue-collars is nearly 400 million, accounting for two-thirds of the main force of employment. Within the blue-collars, male to female ratio is 2: 1 and young adults below 35-year-old is the mainstream, accounting for about 70%. Therefore, 58.com launched a survey focusing on the blue-collar groups and drew the following conclusions: First, China's blue-collar class is in the process of change, their work, life and thoughts changes obviously. The traditional generation of blue-collars were mostly migrant workers or factory workers, they worked very hard and lived frugally; the new generation of blue-collars are mostly in the service sector, their work stressfully and focus on consumption. Second, blue-collars’ income grows year after year and some industries / positions increase far more than ordinary white-collars. In 2013, the average monthly salary of blue-collars was 3875 yuan and increased to 4800 yuan in 2016. Some professions such as baby keeper, courier, mechanic, mechanical operator had the average monthly salary over 10 thousand. Third, China's new blue-collars and traditional blue-collars have significant characteristics and differences in the educational background, income, living consumption concept. New blue collars are not in manufacturing and construction industries, while mainly concentrate in the service industry. Compared with the traditional blue-collars, new blue-collars have higher educational background, higher professional aspirations, higher consumption and know more how to enjoy life. Fourth, 60% of China's new blue-collars are mostly post 90s, so the employment trends of post 90s blue-collars are on behalf of the new blue-collars’ characteristics. Fifth, China's new blue-collar job-seekers incline to the service industry, Beijing and Shanghai and other big cities are no longer their first choice. Sixth, post 90s blue-collars are more confident, firmly believe that they can be successful through their own efforts; their consuming attitude is closer to the society’s and they pursue fashion, care about the material and enjoy life. Better than survival and less than life is a true portrayal of most new blue-collars and job-hopping is mainly due to the lack of money. In addition, although the sense of belonging to the city of post 90s blue-collars enhanced, most people still choose to go back home.

During the thematic speeches and free exchange sessions, the professors and experts deeply discussed the employment situation and thematic reports in the third quarter of 2016.

Wu Jie, Chief of Population and Employment Statistics Department, National Bureau of Statistics, pointed that the employment situation in the third quarter was stable, which is in line with the job market reflected by the CIER index. Specifically, urban unemployment rate in 31 cities was lower than 5% for the first time in the third quarter, showing a declining trend compared with the previous quarter; the unemployment rate of urban youth dropped and the proportion of urban short-term unemployed decreased; the number of the employed in the second industry decreased by 1.9% - 2.52 million, while the number of the employed in the third industry increased by 3.7% - 1.53 million;  the average wage of enterprises employed increased by 5.9% compared with the same period of last year; the employment of enterprises decreased in the third quarter, but the decrease was narrowed compared with the expectation; the effect of overcapacity on employment was shown by the decrease of employment in coal mining and other industries by 12%, Oil, metal smelting industry, employment by 7% and 10%; college students employment, the signing rate in the third quarter is not high following the second quarter, but the employment situation has improved compared to previous years. Consolidated survey data and the above-mentioned researchers report, we can see that the overall employment situation in the third quarter is better than expected.

Guo Cheng, Director of Employment Promotion Department, National Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said that the third quarter of the job market has shown a steady rise trend. The results of 2016 Third Quarterly Review of Employment are in good agreement with the government statistics, and the four reports complete each other. The situation in Suzhou area supports the contents of the CIER index report; the effect of Taobao on the employment reflects the impact of technological progress on employment. From the data indicators, the situation of the third quarter is better than that of last year, but the employment market still remains some structural problems, including: First, the resettlement problem after cutting excessive industrial capacity; the unemployment problem of local urban employees during the process of cutting excessive industrial capacity; third, the problem of the fresh graduates’ employment, the survey shows that the difficulty of finding jobs for fresh graduates has increased, college students who think it difficult to find a job account for 57%. The next step is to take into account both the level of employment and the quality of employment.

Li Qiang, Marketing Communications Director of Zhilian Zhao Pin, believes that from the national recruitment data, although the CIER index increase, but it still has to be cautiously optimistic. First of all, from CIER report, we can see that in the third quarter, the best employment situation concentrated in the internet, finance, transportation, real estate and other industries and these industries have a common feature, which are all driven by investment and need venture capital investors to invest large amount of money, while once this link has problems, the overall employment situation will be greatly effected. From the third quarter, we can see that although some internet companies have developed very well, the recruitment is shrinking. Secondly, for some positions which are very important to the national economy, such as office equipment manufacturing, petrochemicals and so on, its CIER index and the growth rate of positions is very low, far lower than the national average, so this phenomenon also has some risks. Finally, the employment pressure of college students is still very large. It is expected that there will be 7.8 million graduates next year. According to previous experience, mainly large enterprises have a strong ability to absorb college students, but with the control for real estate, the impact of industry changes on the employment of college students deserves continuous attention.

Hao Jianbin, Employment Research Director of Alibaba Group, said that, according to the results of field research, the share of online sales for many traditional market has reached 30% and many factories have been converted from the original trade into online sales If the online orders reduce, these enterprises will have to face layoffs, the employment in these areas has been closely related to the public's consumption. Secondly, he believes that attention should be paid to the promotion of technological progress and the substitution of employment, some new occupations and positions will be derived from artificial intelligence, but the technological progress will also bring huge impact on traditional industries, causing employment substitution. It has to further analyze whether employment substitution is good or bad. The initial idea is to use large data to analyze the consumption situation behind each type of product. In addition, the government policy will also affect the employment of enterprises. For example, the introduction of this year's residual insurance policy, had a great impact on the high-tech industry, which t may cause a large number of high-tech industry executives relocation in future.

Ge Ling, General manager of the Department of government affairs of 58.com, hopes to establish links with experts to discuss and share the data collected and the research done by 58.com through thematic reports or other means, so as to further carry out analysis and research work in future.

Xue Yan, senior researcher of Didi Chuxing policy institution, hopes to cooperate with the experts to explore and measure the absorption capacity and contribution of the economic platform for employment based on Didi platform.

Professor Zhao Zhong from the School of Labor and Human Resources of Renmin University of China, believes that the China Quarterly Review of Employment includes the overall situation of China's employment market, the status of regional employment development and the impact of technological revolution on the labor market, combines the data from different perspective to show the current situation of the employment market and development trends. We can continue to focus on long-term, forward-looking issues in future, on this basis, academia, enterprises and governments can carry out more extensive research and cooperation.

Professor Ding Dajian, a researcher at the China Employment Research Institute, said that the new blue-collar research report presented by 58.com was very innovative and focused on an employment group to study their employment patterns and morphological evolution. In future, it may be considered to standardize such reports, to introduce specific research methods, survey methods and data sources to enhance the persuasiveness of the reports.

Finally, Professor Zeng Xiangquan gave a brief summary of the seminar. First, according to the 2016 Third Quarterly Review of Employment, combined with the status of China's employment market, we can find that the structural contradictions of China's employment is still very prominent and the structural transformation lags behind the structural transformation, which is highly related with China's economic restructuring and current policy background. Second, from a global perspective, with the impact of the new technological revolution, the polarization of employment market and income inequality are more prominent. Whether the new technological revolution will create or destroy jobs, whether machine learning will replace highly skilled labor, has yet to be finalized and needs further study. Third, the proportion of part-time workers in the labor market continues to increase, which reflects hidden unemployment and some other problems in the employment market, China Institute for Employment Research will continue further study and analyses with Zhilian Zhaopin, 58.com groups and other enterprises. Finally, thanks to many years’ platform support provided by the government and the cooperation with the enterprises. In future, China Institute for Employment Research will focus on the new technological revolution and the impact of share economy and machine learning on the Chinese labor market, launch a series of seminars and produce higher level of research to support policy-making of the government.