ABSTRACT
Although China has sustained high economic growth for a quarter of a century, unemployment has become a big problem in recent years. The unemployment rate in China is called the urban registered unemployment rate. The term ‘registered unemployed persons’ only refers to the persons who are registered as permanent residents in the urban areas engaged in non-agricultural activities. The rural labour force is outside the purview of unemployment statistics. The number of registered unemployed was only 5.95 million (3.1 per cent of the urban labour force) at the end of 2000 (NBS and MoL 2001: 67). To reduce a potentially explosive political situation, several new categories of joblessness were created, in addition to the registered unemployed. Thus, there are xiagang (laid-offworkers) – employees who have been laid offbut still have some link with their previous place of employment – the enterprise. Official sources put the number of laid-offworkers at 9.11 million at the end of 2000 (NBS and MoL 2001: 402). The laid-offworkers are not counted as unemployed as they still maintain a close link with and obtain a minimum payment from their enterprises. Such workers are not required to register for unemployment in order to obtain some benefits from the state or their firms (Gu 1999). Hence, the majority of officially recognized unemployed people are school-leavers in the cities. Over the last 20 years, 70 per cent of the total urban unemployed comprised youths, aged between 16 and 25. Youth unemployment data are more reliable than adult unemployment data in China, as youth unemployment data are not distorted by the exclusion of significant numbers of adult laid-offworkers from the more familiar unemployment statistics.
