ABSTRACT
The growth and structure of China’s employment are the outcome of 30 years of reform, opening up, and development. Reviewing the journey of China’s economic reform, we fi nd that while it has been, by and large, gradual and incremental, it also takes relatively radical measures in certain areas and at certain stages. The choices of forms and measures in the reform process depend on the adaptability of different components of the economic system, and on how much the society is capable of adapting to the reform. After the 1997 Asian fi nancial crisis, China’s overall reform process sped up, as evidenced by the relatively radical measures taken to reform the employment system and develop the labor market on the basis of past growth in the non-publicly-owned economy. Thanks to government efforts and profi cient functioning of the market mechanism, urban and rural employment has grown rapidly in China in the last decade.
