China's employment challenges and strategies after the WTO accession

Douglas Zhihua Zeng

No 3522, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Although China has made impressive progress in economicdevelopment and improving social well-being, it is facing many daunting challenges while transforming toward a knowledge and service-based economy and further opening up to international competition after its WTO accession in the context of knowledge revolution. One of the biggest challenges is how to create 100-300 million new jobs in the coming decade to absorb the millions of laid-offs, rural emigrants and newly added labor force. China has been successful in building high-tech parks and ICT industries, but they are limited in terms of employment generation, while most of the traditional labor-intensive industries are losing competitiveness due to low productivity. In order to combat the unprecedented employment challenge, China must implement a systemic and sustained strategy, which may consist of the following policy thrusts: encouraging the private sector; promoting small and medium enterprises; expanding the service sector; reforming the state-owned enterprises; strengthening the social security system; improving labor market flexibility; and establishing mass retraining programs.

Keywords: Public Health Promotion; Banks&Banking Reform; Municipal Financial Management; Environmental Economics&Policies; Labor Policies; Economic Theory&Research; Environmental Economics&Policies; Banks&Banking Reform; Municipal Financial Management; Health Monitoring&Evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-mac and nep-tra
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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