On January 16, 2014, CIER successfully held 2013 Fourth Quarterly Review of Employment in China at Room 347 of Qiushi Building, RUC. Deputy Director of Department of Employment and Income Distribution, National Development and Reform Commission Hu Deqiao, Deputy Director of Department of Employment Promotion of MHRSS Zhang Ying, Deputy Director of Department of Population and Employment Statistics Zhang Zhibin, Deputy Director of Institute of Social Security, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Wang Zeying, General Manager of Suzhou Industrial Park, Human Resources Development Co., LTD, Kang Yue, Director of Institute of Labor Science, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Zhang Libin, and Executive Director of Product Operation of Zhaopin.com, Hao Jian attended the meeting at invitation. Dean of SLHR and Director of CIER, Professor Zeng Xiangquan, Director of Data Center of SLHR and CIER Researcher, Ding Dajian, and other research staff, Zhao Zhong, Geng Lin, Guo Yu, Chen Xuan, Wu Jinyu, etc., also participated in the meeting. The meeting was hosted by Professor Tang Kuang, Deputy Party Secretary of SLHR and Deputy Director of CIER.
CIER researcher Ding Dajian gave a speech entitled “The Analysis of 2013 Fourth Quarter Chinese Employment Situation Based on the Internet Data from Zhaopin.com and Market Data of Suzhou Industrial Park”. To begin with, he gave a brief review of employment situation in the third quarter of 2013 and described the online recruitment data. Then he went into detailed analysis of employment situation of the fourth quarter, the reason why CIER index changed, the structural changes in market supply, the employment situations of different occupations, different regions (large and medium-sized cities), and different kinds and sizes of companies, and the labor market in a typical region (Suzhou Industrial Park). He believed that the changes of CIER index of the fourth quarter of 2013 had the following features : (1) CIER quarterly index continued to decline and may be close to the bottom, and the employment situation was stable; (2) In this quarter, rapid increase in demand and continuously decline in supply constituted of the two forces of driving the CIER index down; (3) The differences of competitive pressures of employment among industries and occupations became smaller, which mainly reflected the impact of some institutional factors; (4) Inter-city and inter-regional competitive pressures of employment kept on narrowing, and there was changeover in east-central-west regions, first-tier and second-tier cities;(5) The differences of employment competitive pressures in a variety of companies remained large but has shrank; The differences also diminished in companies of variable sizes.
General Manager Kang Yue delivered a speech entitled "Report on 2013 Human Resources Situation in Suzhou Industrial Park”. Firstly, he analyzed 2013 human resources index, human resources market features and the situation of graduating student recruitment. He found that: (1) In 2013, the demand index stayed relatively low during the first half year, recovered rapidly in the third quarter, and kept an trend of increase for the whole year. (2) In 2013, after the supply index showed a peak value in the first quarter higher than that of the same historical period, it followed a trend of decrease for the whole year; (3) The total human resource matching index of the park declined from 300% in the first quarter all the way down to 126%; (4) High-educated employed population increased in a remarkable rate; (5) The population in labor dispatch and traditional manufacturing industry declined; (6) The turnover rate of dispatched workers was rising; (7) There was huge difficulty of recruiting and retaining high-skilled talents; (8) The compensation levels of junior and senior managerial positions significantly increased; (9) The compensation of high-tech industry gradually went high; (10) The proportion of high-educated students in graduating students increased; (11) The ability of high-tech industry of absorbing graduating students was strengthened. At last, he made a prediction of 2014 human resource situation: (1) The recruiting demand of park enterprises will be stable with some increases; (2) The employment structure will be further optimized.
After that, the Deputy Director Wang Zeying gave a report entitled “Analysis of the Effect of Raising Statutory Age of Retirement”. He found that statutory age of retirement was a comprehensive socio-economic policy, which was diverse in different countries and in different historical periods in the same country and was influenced by a variety of factors such as total population and structure, level of economic development, supply and demand of labor, education level, social security system, culture and traditions, and so on. He pointed out that statutory age of retirement was the decisive factor of retirement time of employees and it influenced labor supply of different groups. It also had an impact on labor demand by influencing labor cost and labor substitution. He indicated that the purpose of raising statutory age of retirement were: (1) got in line with current policy of statutory age of retirement; (2) coordinated with strategies of population, economy and employment; (3) accomplished development of social security system; (4) helped to relieve poverty of aged people; (5) fitted differences among companies and individual employees; (6) satisfied labor demand of enterprise development; (7) guaranteed demand of elderly people; (8) fitted individual differences. He also introduced two proposals of how to raise statutory age of retirement and analyzed the effects of raising statutory age of retirement on elderly labor supply, labor demand, employment of different groups, employment promotion, employment substitution effect, labor supply, gap between supply and demand, etc.
Associate researcher Geng Lin made a report entitled "Prediction Analysis of CIER Index Based on the Labor Market” with the updated research results since July, 2008 till December, 2013. The report indicated that PMI of Chinese manufacturing industry in December 2013 was 51.0%, showing a 0.4% decline as compared with last month. Although PMI of December decreased, it was still above the critical point of 50% for a consecutive 15 months, indicating the continuous growing trend of Chinese manufacturing industry and sustained economic recovery. Conclusions are drawn by the basic situation of macro economy introduction, the trend and period analysis of CIER index, the long-term matching of labor supply and demand of China, the analysis between CIER monthly index and relevant macroeconomic indicators; predictive analysis on CIER index showed that: (1) There will be a decline of Chinese working-age population and total supply of labor in recent years, and the trend will keep for a long time; what’s more, aging of population will become more serious and the proportion of population aged between 45 and 64 years old in working-age population will increase; (2) The decreasing trend of CIER index in recent years was not an accidental short-term phenomenon and it was very likely to be an indicator of the growing gap between market labor supply and demand and to be a long-term phenomenon, which resulted from the structural changes of population and can’t be reversed in the short run. As a result, CIER index may be on a downward in the long run; (3) The sub-item of CIER trend possibly reflected the long-term structural changes of labor market and the sub-item of CIER cycle reflected short-term volatility characteristics; (4) As can be seen from the long-term trend of labor market, the sub-item of CIER trend will continue to drop; the sub-item of CIER cycle will also go down as economy continues to improve. However, since there will be strong influence of seasonal factors, it is predicted that CIER index of January 2014 will be lower than that of December 2013 and it will rebound significantly in February and March.
After that, the Deputy Director Hu Deqiao, Zhang Ying, Zhang Zhibin and so on spoke highly of the seminar for the efforts of our researchers and exchanged their own viewpoints with the experts based on the new guidance of The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist.
Finally, Dean Zeng made a summary of the meeting. He believed that in the long run with the slowdown of economy growth, and decline of labor demand, the improvement and substitution of technology, the adjustment of capacity caused by environmental pollution, the increased population of college students, the raise of statutory age of retirement, the rising company cost, etc., the employment situation will become more complex and may not go well. He considered it necessary to timely assess current employment policies, and improve the policies based on the result of assessment. Dean Zeng hoped that more contents could be discussed in Quarterly Review and suggested that directors of relevant projects of country and ministries be invited to give speeches and that hot topics be responded in time. At last, he gave thanks to the support and efforts of the government, enterprises and the academia to the quarterly employment analysis conference. He hoped that all sides would continue work together to implement the goals of the reform of the 18th Third Plenary Session. |
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