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Advancing High-Quality and Full Employment

XI JINPING

Today, we are holding the 14th group study session of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee to address the issue of promoting high-quality and full employment. Acting on the guiding principles from the 20th CPC National Congress, we will review the achievements and best practices in employment work in the new era, analyze the current employment landscape and key challenges, and explore approaches and measures to advance high-quality and full employment. 

Employment is fundamental to people’s wellbeing and has a strong bearing on their vital interests. It is important to the healthy development of the economy and society, and the long-term stability of the country. For this reason, our Party has always attached great importance to employment. Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, the Central Committee has made employment a top priority in national governance. By strengthening the employment-first policy and enhancing support mechanisms, we have responded effectively to both external pressures and domestic difficulties, particularly the grave challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. On average, 13 million new urban jobs have been created each year, and the surveyed urban unemployment rate has remained at a low level. As a large developing country with over 1.4 billion people, China has achieved fairly full employment, providing important support for improving public wellbeing and sustaining economic development.

In this process, we have gained deeper insights into the underlying laws of employment in the new era and developed a range of effective practices. These include upholding our Party’s overall leadership over employment, recognizing employment as a cornerstone of public wellbeing, implementing the employment-first strategy, creating jobs through development, expanding employment capacity while elevating job quality, ensuring employment for key groups, creating more employment opportunities through startups, fostering a fairer employment environment, and nurturing harmonious labor relations. These practices are invaluable and must be upheld, enriched, and further developed in the future.

President Xi Jinping exchanges views with researchers and corporate leaders while visiting the Hefei Binhu Science City, Anhui Province, October 17, 2024. He toured Anhui on October 17 and 18. PHOTO BY XINHUA REPORTER JU PENG

At the same time, we must acknowledge the many prominent issues and problems confronting us in employment work. China has entered a phase of development where strategic opportunities coexist with risks and challenges, while uncertainties and unpredictable factors continue to rise. Maintaining stable growth and employment remains a pressing task. Trends such as declining birthrates, an aging population, regional disparities in population development, and digital transformation of the economy are exerting a stronger impact on employment, further highlighting structural employment issues. Moreover, as people’s needs for a higher quality of life grow, there is an urgent desire among workers for higher-quality job opportunities.

In response to evolving employment dynamics, our Party made the major decision to advance high-quality and full employment at its 20th National Congress in 2022. This initiative aims to meet the people’s new expectations, drive high-quality development, and promote common prosperity for all. At the macro level, high-quality and full employment encompasses several key dimensions: ample job opportunities, a fair and equitable employment environment, an optimized employment structure, an efficient match between workers and job positions, and harmonious labor relations. At the micro level, it extends beyond job availability to ensuring stable employment, fair wages, reliable social security protection, and occupational safety, along with other safeguards. 

Of course, these are high standards that will take time to meet, but we must do everything within our capacity to see them achieved. At the same time, we must fully unleash the drive, initiative, and creativity of our people, guiding them to build better lives through diligence and hard work. We must reject the mentality of seeking benefits without contribution or living off the work of others.

On the new journey of the new era, promoting high-quality and full employment is our new goal and mission in employment work. Guided by the people-centered development philosophy, we should fully implement policies that support self-reliant job seeking, market-driven employment, government-supported employment, and business startups. Our efforts should be based on high-quality development and guided by the employment-first strategy. We must strengthen this policy and deepen structural reforms in employment. Through these measures, we will continue to effectively upgrade and appropriately expand employment, enhance the sense of gain, happiness, and security of all workers, and provide robust support for building a great country and advancing national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization. 

Here, I would like to emphasize the following five points:

1. Putting employment first

We must resolutely implement the new development philosophy and consciously prioritize high-quality and full employment as a key goal of economic and social development. This requires bolstering development’s capacity to drive employment and ensuring that high-quality development creates more and better job opportunities. By developing new quality productive forces in line with local conditions, transforming and upgrading traditional industries, nurturing and strengthening emerging sectors, planning for future industries, and modernizing the industrial system, we can create high-quality jobs in greater numbers. We will support the growth of labor-intensive industries and businesses so as to increase employment opportunities and ensure job stability. 

In response to new economic and social trends as well as the people’s rising expectations for a higher quality of life, we will foster a more specialized and efficient division of labor, develop new forms and models of business, and explore and cultivate new occupations, thus creating new areas for employment growth.

Additionally, we need to better assess the employment impacts of major policies, key projects, and the distribution of important productive forces, and ensure that fiscal, monetary, investment, consumption, industrial, regional, and other policies are well coordinated with employment policies to create synergy for fostering an employment-friendly development model. 

2. Solving structural employment issues

China’s primary employment challenge is the mismatch between the supply and demand of human resources. To address this, we must quickly develop a high-quality, abundant, well-structured, and well-distributed human resources system. This requires us to adapt to the new scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, gain a clear understanding of human resources development trends, and ensure stronger coordination among education, training, and employment. We will adjust academic programs and resource allocation in higher education as needed, boost vocational education, improve lifelong vocational skills training, and promote better integration between vocational and general education, industry and education, and science and education. This will make human resource development more forward-looking, targeted, and effective.

President Xi Jinping learns about the sale of dried and fresh seafood at Aojiao Village in Dongshan County, Fujian Province, October 15, 2024. He toured Fujian on October 15 and 16. PHOTO BY XINHUA REPORTER XIE HUANCHI

In addition, we must work toward achieving better alignment between supply and demand, striving to ensure individuals are placed in roles that align with their skills and strengths, enabling them to best use their talents. This will enhance the quality and stability of employment. We also need to improve public communication to help establish the right perspective on employment throughout society. We will strive to foster a positive atmosphere of discussion and an inclusive social environment where no job is valued above another, all types of work are equally respected, every trade has its champions, and individuals can thrive even at the grassroots level. Such fresh perspectives on career choices will help open up new and greater opportunities for people seeking employment. Moreover, we must look into the root causes behind serious labor shortages in some industries and adopt effective measures to fill the gaps. By tackling the issue of jobs being unfilled, we will also be able to address the problems of jobseekers who cannot find work.

President Xi Jinping exchanges views with truck drivers, train drivers, loading workers, and management staff at a rail container hub in Chongqing International Logistics Hub Park, April 22, 2024. He toured Chongqing from April 22 to 24. PHOTO BY XINHUA REPORTER YUE YUEWEI

3. Enhancing employment support for key groups

The employment of college graduates and other young people must remain our highest priority. We will create more job opportunities that leverage their skills and strengths and encourage youth to pursue roles in key sectors and industries, grassroots organizations in cities and rural areas, and micro, small, and medium enterprises, or to start their own businesses. We will expand market-driven and socially-supported employment channels to ensure overall stability in youth employment. 

As we advance new urbanization and rural revitalization, we should support workers in finding employment both locally and outside their home regions, ensuring job access for rural migrant workers through various measures and fostering rural businesses led by skilled migrant returnees and entrepreneurs from urban areas. We will ensure that employment and income levels remain stable among people lifted out of poverty and prevent any large-scale relapse into poverty due to unemployment. 

To provide stronger support for those facing employment difficulties, such as older jobseekers, people with disabilities, and the long-term unemployed, we will implement employment assistance measures, make the best use of public welfare positions, and timely address cases of zero-employment households as soon as they are identified. Measures should also be taken to ensure employment for ex-service personnel and women.

4. Advancing structural employment reforms

We must ensure that the market plays the decisive role in human resource allocation and that the government better fulfills its role. Our focus will be on eliminating bottlenecks and obstacles hindering the creation of higher-quality jobs, the expansion of employment capacity, and structural optimizations. 

We will improve public employment services, making them more accessible, equitable, and specialized. Our goal is to establish a comprehensive framework that ensures universal access while delivering convenient and efficient services across all regions and throughout every stage of a worker’s employment. We will improve the system for supporting job creation through entrepreneurship, upgrade startup services, and help improve startup performance. 

We will develop a unified, regulated human resources market and foster a fairer employment environment by removing institutional barriers that impede the flow of labor and talent, ensuring everyone has opportunities to thrive through hard work.

5. Strengthening the protection of workers’ rights and interests

We will strengthen labor laws and regulations, enhance labor standards for new forms of employment, and improve the social security system. Workers’ legal rights and interests, including wages, rest and leave, safety, skills training, social insurance, and benefits, will be protected. 

Attention will be given to workers in flexible or new forms of employment. We will expand trials for occupational injury insurance and institutionalize successful practices. Through enhanced market regulation and labor protection enforcement, we will address issues like employment discrimination, unpaid wages and social security contributions, and illegal layoffs.

Employment is vital not only for individual families but for the nation as a whole. Party committees and governments at all levels must prioritize employment in improving public wellbeing. We should strengthen organization and leadership, refine relevant systems and mechanisms, and bring greater synergy to our work. Furthermore, we should accelerate the development of a Chinese theoretical framework for employment, share successful practices internationally, and enhance China’s global voice and weight in this area.

These are the main points of remarks delivered by General Secretary Xi Jinping at the 14th group study session of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee on May 27, 2024. 

(Originally appeared in Qiushi Journal, Chinese edition, No. 21, 2024)