Zhao Changmao, a professor and doctoral supervisor at the Central Party School?
Under the planned economy system, China implemented the policy of low wages and high employment. On the surface, everyone has a job, but in fact, a large number of surplus labor exists in the form of hidden unemployment. After the reform and opening up, with the continuous transformation of the economic system, hidden unemployment has gradually emerged. In the 1990s, the pressure of unemployment increased significantly. From 65438 to 0992, the registered urban unemployment rate in China was 2.3%, reaching 4% in 2002, rising to 4.3% in 2003, and the expected unemployment rate in 2004 was 4.7%.
The rising unemployment rate makes China face unprecedented employment pressure. The existence of a large number of unemployed people not only means the waste of human resources, but also brings pain to individuals, families and society, and brings many negative effects, which has become an important factor affecting social stability. Therefore, in western economics, the unemployment rate is called the "pain index".
It should be pointed out that the current unemployment rate in China is not high by the standards of western developed countries, but why is the employment pressure in China huge? To understand this problem, we must first understand the specific connotation of the unemployment rate in China. First of all, the unemployment rate announced by our government to the society is the registered urban unemployment rate. Since it is the "urban" unemployment rate, it does not reflect the rural unemployment problem, that is to say, it only reflects part of the unemployment problem in China, while the unemployment rate announced by western countries is the unemployment rate of the whole society, including urban and rural areas; The so-called "registered unemployment" refers to those who are not in agricultural registered permanent residence, have the ability to work within a certain working age, and are unemployed and registered in the local employment service agencies to apply for jobs. If they are unemployed but not registered, they don't count. The unemployment rate announced by western countries is the survey unemployment rate, and the authenticity of the survey unemployment rate is higher than the registered unemployment rate. Secondly, the upper age limit of unemployment statistics in China is too low. According to China's regulations, the age range of unemployment registration is male 16~50 years old and female 16~45 years old, while the retirement age of employees is 60 years old for men and 55 years old for women. Foreign countries usually only stipulate the lower age limit for unemployed people. Those who continue to look for a job after retirement but can't find a job are still considered unemployed. Third, China distinguishes between laid-off workers and unemployed people. Laid-off workers are not considered unemployed, and laid-off workers are not included in unemployment statistics. In 2003, the number of laid-off workers in China reached more than 6 million.
How high is the unemployment rate in China?
Professor Feng Lanrui, an employment expert from China Academy of Social Sciences.
In 2003, the unemployment rate in China was close to 30%?
Reporter: The unemployment rate of 27.78% in China is scary enough. Has the third unemployment peak in China, which you mentioned, passed now?
(hereinafter referred to as Feng): At present, the third unemployment peak in China has not passed. I mean open unemployment, hidden unemployment and peasant unemployment. I can't tell you the specific figures in this regard now. The unemployment rate peaked at 200 1 and in 2002.
Reporter: The 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China said that the employment situation in China is very good now. /kloc-more than 0/0 million laid-off workers returned to their posts, and the registered unemployment rate in cities and towns of the Bureau of Statistics was 4%.
Feng: Have you read my article? I said that the registered unemployment rate in cities and towns is unscientific and incomplete. One is to abandon the countryside and only engage in towns. Second, only the registered unemployed are counted. Not registered, not signed by the unit. Only a few people registered. Some people don't necessarily register after losing their jobs, and some people don't even know where to register, which is caused by the imperfect labor security system. In fact, in 2002, although 10 million unemployed people found jobs again, there were far more unemployed people than employed people. At the same time, many new laborers have been added, such as graduates of secondary and higher education, people aged 18, and laborers who have lost their land in rural areas.
We often see articles published in the national media, but the exact unemployment rate in China is not very clear.
Reporter: China is the most populous country in the world. Is the unemployment rate relatively high?
Feng: This statement is also unscientific.
Reporter: Do you think it is higher than the 27.78% at the third peak of unemployment? Is there any basis for this?
Feng: Of course there is a basis. There is no evidence that the third unemployment peak in China has passed. The current unemployment rate in China lacks a fair, objective and scientific evaluation. At present, I can't come up with accurate figures in this regard, and there may be very few people who can't come up with them. There is no accurate figure between the hidden unemployment rate in cities and the unemployment rate of a large number of farmers.
Reporter: Can it reach 30%? What you said is higher than the previous forecast, is it close to 30%?
Feng: My statistical methods include overt unemployment and covert unemployment. At present, some laid-off resettlement offices have not been removed. The laid-off resettlement offices have been prepared for three years, and now it has been five years.
China's theory of economic slowdown? 2003-9-2
The rapid increase of urban unemployed population in China will seriously restrict the economic growth of China. According to the questionnaire survey of domestic scholars and officials, the Institute of Labor Science of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security of China believes that the actual urban unemployment rate in China has reached 7%, with an increasing trend in recent two years. Among them, the official estimate is low (close to 6%) and the scholar estimate is high (higher than 8%); The Macroeconomic Research Institute of China State Planning Commission predicts that the actual unemployment rate will exceed 9% in 20001year; According to the sampling survey and comprehensive data, the the State Council Development Research Center estimates that since the mid-1990s, the actual urban unemployment rate has been above 10%, with the actual unemployment rates of 197 and 198 reaching 13% to 15%.
Donne, an expert on China at Cato Institute in the United States, estimated that by the end of 2002, the total urban and rural unemployment rate in China may reach 10%, and the number of unemployed people will be between 30 million and 40 million. Among them, the rural unemployment rate is between 10%- 15%. Dr. Cheng Xiaonong of Princeton University estimated that the actual unemployment rate in China is 20%, and the number of unemployed people is about 40 million to 50 million. He believes that the unemployment rate in small and medium-sized cities in Chinese mainland is above 30%.
Statistical caliber of unemployment rate in China and some views
From a rough point of view, the calculation of urban unemployment rate in China mainly has the following shortcomings:
1, rural areas are not included, because there is huge hidden unemployment in rural areas, so China's estimate is greatly underestimated.
2, only consider the urban hukou, not counting the floating population who work in the city without hukou, which is greatly overestimated.
3. The laid-off workers of state-owned enterprises who are nominally unemployed but actually unemployed are not counted and underestimated. In China's statistics, the unemployed do not include laid-off workers (in fact, I find this statistic ironic. What's the difference between being laid off and being unemployed? )
The above three points are different from those in the west.
Self-employed, domestic helpers, underground workers and part-time jobs are not included, which is overestimated.
The fourth point is not found in western statistics, but considering that China is in transition, this part may be much higher than the western market economy in proportion.
At present, there is no direct statistical data in the fourth part in China, but the scale of underground economy and family economy in China is estimated first, and then the possible employment ratio is estimated. However, I doubt whether it is accurate through repeated estimation!
My personal view on the current unemployment situation in China is that, on the whole, the employment rate in China should be much higher than that in OECD countries. Although the unemployment rate in China is underestimated in many aspects, the unemployment rate in China is also overestimated in many aspects, and the so-called employment elasticity is reduced. Personally, I think that structural adjustment is inevitable when faced with a huge technical shock, but after more than 20 years of gradual reform in China, the adjustment speed in China is getting faster and faster.
I think the so-called employment problem in China mainly lies in three aspects:
First, why did the unemployment rate in China increase slightly and social sensitivity was rapidly provided? It is not the role of unemployment mechanism, but the lag of social security policy. Undoubtedly, compared with oecd countries, the employment rate in China still belongs to a virtuous cycle.
Second, the statistical work lags behind. Originally, China's statistical work has just started. At this time, the adjustment of employment structure in China is very turbulent, which poses a greater challenge to statistical work. So without exact data, all kinds of good and bad unemployment rates have been calculated.
Thirdly, the unemployment problem in China is not high unemployment rate, at least the key point is not high unemployment rate, but that unemployment lasts too long. In fact, many people have already dropped out of school, which is the biggest headache in China at present. There are two main ways to solve this problem, one is to improve the welfare security system, and the other is to actively labor policy. As a country with only more than 20 years of market experience, this is a powerful challenge. The unemployment rate in the United States is much higher than that in China, but its unemployment rate is mainly reflected in short-term unemployment. The United States can handle 5 million unemployed people and re-employment every month, so the matching efficiency of China's labor market is far lower than that of the United States. This is the problem.
The average unemployment rate of new immigrants in China is 5.9%? 2003- 10- 16
According to the latest statistics released by the Australian Federal Bureau of Statistics, the recent employment situation of new immigrants from Asia in Australia is grim, and the unemployment rate of new immigrants from China is as high as 15.8%.
According to the data of the Australian Federal Bureau of Statistics, the so-called new immigrants refer to those who have arrived in Australia since 1996. According to some immigrant communities, it is more difficult for these people to find jobs than others.
The latest statistics on the employment situation of new immigrants show that the average unemployment rate of new immigrants in Australia is 5.9%, which is higher than that of people born in Australia (5.5%).
However, the unemployment rate of immigrants in different countries varies greatly. Among them, the highest unemployment rate is immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East, with an unemployment rate as high as 30%. The lowest unemployment rate is immigrants from Britain and Ireland, with an unemployment rate of 3.4%.
The unemployment rate of new immigrants in North Asia is 13.8%, and the lowest employment participation rate is that of new immigrants in Northeast Asia.
Less than five years after emigration, the unemployment rate reached 30%.
At the meeting, the organization released a report entitled "Building Our Future Labor Force", which quoted figures from different reports.
According to the report, the unemployment rate of new immigrants who have been in Canada for less than five years is higher than that of native-born people. The overall unemployment rate of new immigrants is 30%, while the unemployment rate of new immigrants in the main working age group of 25-44 years old is 12. 1%, and the unemployment rate of local-born people of the same age is 6.4%. It can be seen that the unemployment rate of new immigrants in this age group is nearly/kloc-higher than that of native-born people.
Before the arrival of many immigrants, about 30% of them were engaged in professional, administrative and management jobs in their original places of residence, but only about 65,438+00% of them were able to engage in similar jobs again after their arrival, and as many as 73% of them claimed that their original academic qualifications were not recognized. New immigrants also earn lower wages than locals, especially female new immigrants.
China is in the period of social transformation, the social structure is changing, social contradictions are on the rise, and social contradictions are becoming more and more obvious, which brings disharmony and instability to reform and development. A society should maintain an open, flexible and inclusive state, release various social tensions, respond to social demands and resolve social conflicts through controllable, legal and institutionalized mechanisms. Resolving social contradictions in time, seeking solutions and setting up "safety valves" to resolve social crises are of great significance for building a harmonious socialist society.
Just from the phenomenon, it can be said that various social contradictions in China are relatively concentrated at present. Farmers lost their land, urban poverty, labor disputes, college students' employment difficulties, increased group petitions, frequent mine accidents, rising incidence of AIDS, drug abuse and so on. Various social problems have begun to affect the healthy development of the economy.
Ding Ningning, Minister of Social Affairs of the State Council Development Research Center, said that these problems emerged after the Asian financial crisis and were the result of deepening market system reform. He emphasized that the central government's policy of dealing with social problems rose from "two guarantees" to "five overall plans", and then put forward a "people-oriented" Scientific Outlook on Development; Its core is to pay attention to the coordinated development of economy and society, which has made clear the direction for alleviating various social contradictions.
He believes that there are three issues that have the greatest impact on China's social field and will play a long-term role: employment, income gap and social security. Employment is the basic means for individuals and families to make a living, and it is also conducive to preventing individuals from drifting out of society. The necessary income gap can improve the operating efficiency of micro-organizations. If the income gap is too large, it will not only violate the principle of fairness, but also make the lives of some social members in trouble. Under the condition of modern market economy, social security system is an important measure and the last line of defense to safeguard social fairness and alleviate social contradictions.
Employment is difficult to be underestimated.
China Economic Times: We feel that it is difficult to find employment in almost all industries, all kinds of people, and even many college graduates who have been in a cold window for more than ten years can't find jobs. Did this phenomenon happen five years ago or ten years ago?
Ding Ningning: This is very different from the early days of reform and opening up. Employment difficulty is an inevitable phenomenon in the process of modernization in all countries, and the situation that China's population growth precedes industrialization aggravates this crisis. The factors that lead to the current and future employment difficulties come from three aspects: First, the working-age population remains high. According to the calculation, although the number of working-age population will decrease slowly after 20 10, the proportion of working-age population to the total population is still very large; Secondly, in the process of urbanization, a large number of rural people enter cities to find jobs every year, which intensifies the total surplus of the primary labor market; Third, in the process of high-speed industrialization, the industrial and economic structure has been constantly adjusted, which has brought about structural contradictions in the middle and senior labor markets. These three factors will not change fundamentally before 2020. As for the employment difficulties of college students, apart from the increase in the working-age population, it is directly related to the problems existing in the reform of the education system.
China Economic Times: It should be said that maintaining a certain unemployment rate is the normal operation form of a market economy society, and it is also conducive to talent competition, thus improving social labor productivity. It's just that we have too many unemployed and underemployed people.
Ding Ningning: Employment is a historical issue that has been puzzling human society since the emergence of industrial civilization. It was not until the birth rate fell in the 1960s that the unemployment problem in western countries was alleviated. There are still a large number of unemployed people in the post-industrial society in the west, when a large number of labor force has been transferred to the tertiary industry. Until today, employment is still the main topic of western politicians' campaign.
Under the traditional planned economy system, China once achieved relatively full employment, but that was at the expense of economic efficiency and personal freedom. When marching towards the socialist market economy system, we should note that full employment is a long-term unsolved problem in western market economy countries. The existence of unemployment reserve force is an important prerequisite to improve the efficiency of resource allocation under the condition of market economy. The so-called industrialization and modernization in modern times is essentially a process in which capital and technology constantly replace the labor force and employment in the field of material production is constantly decreasing.
The employment problem in China is much more difficult than in the history of the western world. /kloc-Europe in the 0/9th century? Including western Russia? The population is less than 200 million. At the beginning of our reform and opening up, the population has exceeded 654.38+0 billion. Although the economy has maintained rapid development and the urbanization process has been accelerating, millions of new jobs have been created every year; However, it still can't meet the employment needs of the new labor force in cities and towns. In addition, after the household quota is determined, a large number of rural surplus labor force flows into cities. As a result, the total surplus of the labor market and structural contradictions coexist. No matter what kind of employment promotion policy is adopted in the near future, it is impossible to achieve full employment in the sense of western economics.
China Economic Times: According to your analysis, what can be done now to solve the employment problem?
Ding Ningning: In addition to further removing the obstacles for migrant workers to enter cities for employment, increasing the transparency of urban labor market, speeding up the information networking of national employment service centers, and providing free re-employment training services for unemployed people, efforts should also be made to improve the employability and quality of workers. Universal compulsory education can be regarded as a long-term employment promotion policy to encourage employed people to participate in continuing education and on-the-job training. In view of the fact that the unemployment problem will exist for a long time and the economic difficulties of the unemployment insurance system will become more and more serious, it is suggested that "employer compensation+social assistance" should be the basic policy starting point for dealing with the unemployment problem in the future. In order to ensure the basic life of unemployed families, so that they do not lose confidence and hope for the future.
The widening income gap threatens social stability.
China Economic Times: "Vulnerable groups" is a new term that has appeared in recent years. It corresponds to the "elite". These two types of people not only have different social status, political rights and discourse rights, but also have different wealth. Most scholars believe that the widening income gap in China is an indisputable fact. Do you think this trend will get worse?
Ding Ningning: Under the current institutional framework, the income gap will continue to widen and may pose a threat to social stability. China is a large developing country with a large population. Objectively, there are great regional differences and urban-rural differences. Therefore, we cannot simply consider social instability based on the Gini coefficient exceeding 0.4. However, after the mid-1990s, with the acceleration of the domestic marketization process, the original barriers to population mobility between regions and between urban and rural areas have been continuously eliminated, and a large number of unemployed people are concentrated in urban areas. In addition, the coverage of urban social security system is too low, and the threat of widening income gap to social stability has gradually become a problem that governments at all levels must pay attention to.
At the beginning of reform and opening up in 1980s, widening income gap was an important measure to improve microeconomic efficiency. The rural areas implement the household contract responsibility system, and the cities implement the material incentive policy of wages and bonuses. However, because most members of society have more or less shared the fruits of reform and opening up, the widening income gap at that time did not affect social stability. After the mid-1990s, with the improvement of economic marketization, the income distribution pattern of residents has also undergone major changes. Among them, it is particularly noteworthy that there are two ends in the distribution field, namely, the illegal high income problem associated with official corruption and the extreme poverty of low-and middle-income groups in urban and rural areas.
Since the reform and opening up, people's awareness of civil rights and democracy has been greatly improved. The illegal high income of corrupt officials and their associates shakes the people's trust in the party and threatens the government's ruling ability. Therefore, we must improve the transparency of government decision-making, block all kinds of illegal income channels and resolutely crack down on official corruption. At the same time, encourage high-income people to expand their investment and donation to social welfare undertakings and give necessary guidance to their consumption behavior.
The survival of the bottom people is related to the stability of the whole social foundation. In recent years, the income of a considerable number of people at the bottom has not increased, but has declined. The government should not take this lightly. Therefore, on the basis of the current "two guarantees", we must bring the urban low-income class into the social assistance system as soon as possible. Including laid-off workers who have lost their sources of income and migrant workers stranded in cities. In addition, the past rural "five guarantees" policy should be gradually transformed into a standardized social assistance system funded by the government.
The government should bear the economic responsibility of social security.
China Economic Times: The feasible way to solve the polarization is to improve the social security system as soon as possible.
Ding Ningning: Social security is the first social issue that entered the government's field of vision in the reform and opening up. However, in the reform of social security system, we not only ignored the rural residents who accounted for the majority of the population; The urban registered population only covers less than half, and the development of pension, medical care, unemployment, work injury and maternity insurance is also very uneven.
With the decline of the collective economy, the original rural security system collapsed rapidly after the rural "fixed production quotas". After the financial "eating in different places", social co-ordination became local co-ordination, and the social security system in backward areas soon got into trouble. In this case, only designing the goal of social security system reform in China according to some ideas of western economists in 1980s can only make the above situation worse. The kind of social insurance that overemphasizes the payment type just excludes the vulnerable groups who need help the most; Compulsory basic courses? Pension, medical care? The introduction of insurance into personal accounts not only weakens the necessary "social welfare", but also confuses the responsibilities of the government and individuals.
China Economic Times: How to establish a low-level and wide-coverage social security system?
Ding Ningning: The social security system under the conditions of modern market economy generally includes three components: social assistance (welfare policy) funded by the government, compulsory social insurance (basic insurance) based on payment, and voluntary supplementary insurance enjoying preferential policies from the government. The last part? Supplementary insurance? Can give full play to the market role. The middle part? Basic insurance? It is based on market principles and enforced by the government. Part one? Welfare policy? This is mainly the responsibility of the government. Under the circumstances that the unemployment rate remains high and the income gap is difficult to narrow, the primary problem of reform is that the government should assume rather than shirk its economic responsibility on social security issues.
In my opinion, what the government can do is to combine unemployment insurance with social assistance on the basis of "two guarantees" and establish a social assistance system based on government taxes and covering the vast majority of urban and rural residents. On the basis of strengthening the construction of urban and rural disease prevention system, we will establish an urban and rural public health service and medical assistance system based on government finance. On the basis of the government's social security responsibility for retirees, we will reduce the contribution rate of basic old-age insurance and expand the coverage to all working-class people in the city. The government has introduced preferential tax measures to encourage wage earners to participate in the supplementary old-age insurance plan, which can change the basic old-age insurance personal account in the past into a supplementary old-age insurance account. All units employing temporary workers will implement compulsory industrial injury insurance.
The complexity of social problems lies in that any unexpected event may trigger potential social contradictions and threaten the stability of the whole society. Although governments at all levels need to establish their own crisis handling mechanisms, it is more important to strengthen investigation and study, find problems as soon as possible, and prevent them before they happen. The so-called crisis management mechanism is not to re-establish a temporary government agency such as an emergency committee, but to clarify the division of labor, responsibilities and working procedures among various government agencies when emergencies occur, so as to reduce the losses caused by emergencies and the negative impact on economic and social life. Fundamentally speaking, the government's ability to deal with emergencies depends largely on the quality and work efficiency of government officials in permanent institutions.
After World War II, there was no major social crisis in western countries because the establishment of social security system increased the sense of belonging of every citizen. On the issue of restoring social credit and increasing citizens' sense of belonging, the elderly have greater influence than the younger generation. Therefore, in order to reduce the financial burden of this government, we must not refuse to honor the social security promise of the previous government. Otherwise, it will pay the price of reducing the credibility of the government. In recent years, the problem of arrears in medical expenses of retired cadres and workers in various places has aroused employees' dissatisfaction with the reform of medical security system and reduced people's trust in governments at all levels. No matter how the social security system is reformed in the future, it is necessary to ensure that the original level of treatment enjoyed by retirees will not be reduced. This is the basis for people to build confidence in the new system.
China Economic Times: In your opinion, apart from the government's ability to deal with emergencies, what other factors have contributed to social stability?
Ding Ningning: In the long run, social stability depends on the smooth flow mechanism between different classes. The long-term stability in China's history largely benefited from the equality of educational ideas and the system design of "Prime Minister comes from Tsing Yi". Under the traditional planned economy system, although the household registration system isolated urban and rural residents, it still opened a road for rural youth to enter the city by recruiting workers, entering universities and promoting them to be soldiers. The market economy originally emphasized "equal opportunities", but in recent years, the discrimination against the children of migrant workers in urban primary and secondary schools and the substantial increase in tuition fees by universities in the name of reform have broken the college dream of children from poor rural families and blocked the normal channels of social mobility. This wrong policy should be corrected in time. Our social policy should conform to the historical trend and not let the bottom people lose hope of changing their children's social status. (Reporter Bai Jingwei) China Economic Times
In western economics, "demand" contains two meanings: one is the desire to buy and the other is the ability to buy, both of which are indispensable. You can buy a house, a car and travel abroad with your salary abroad. In addition to high wages, the whole social security system is sound. Domestic wages are only a fraction or even a tenth of those abroad. If you need to "take money" from other places, or it is gray or even black, this way of expanding "domestic demand" needs to be seriously considered.
In addition, the current unemployment problem in China is also an important factor limiting "domestic demand", which should cause serious concern. Some people think that the lesson of the riots in Argentina is "insufficient ability to repay foreign debts", while others think that there is something wrong with the "financial system" and the linked exchange rate system limits the peso. I don't think they hit the point. The root of this riot is the problem of the rich and the poor. Many people who rob things are holding food or small commodities for daily use, and it is impossible without "poverty". The deepest and most direct causes of similar riots often lie in poverty and unfair distribution. There is still a long way to go before international debt directly affects ordinary people. Poverty is terrible. Although the country has made great progress in establishing the social security system, there are still many problems. According to "Half-monthly Talk", there are currently150,000 urban poor people in China. By August 2006, 5438+0, the "minimum living guarantee for urban residents" only covered 6.04 million people. We don't know what this "guarantee" is yet. Although "unemployment relief" can also be transformed into "expanding domestic demand", this is an issue that China economists never like to consider.