China’s Employment and Social Security Development since the 18th CPC National Congress

 Since the 18th CPC National Congress when we entered a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, had committed to the people-centered development philosophy, and made it the immutable aim of all its work to deliver a better life for the people in the past decade. Proceeding from the overall plan of the Party and the state, and adapting to the new situation, new tasks and new requirements of China’s development, the CPC Central Committee adheres to seek truth from facts and has done everything within its capacity. We endeavor to address inadequacies in support for people’s basic needs in accordance with the principles of meeting basic needs, prioritizing key areas, improving institutions, and guiding expectations. Efforts have been focused on providing inclusive public services, meeting essential needs, and ensuring basic living standards, so that people will have a more adequate, solid and sustainable sense of gain, happiness and security. General Secretary Xi Jinping has always attached great importance to employment and soical security, and stressed that employment is the foundation of people’s wellbeing and matters the most in people’s lives, and that soical security is a major issue for state governance. We should strive to achieve fuller and higher-quality employment and continue to develop a multi-tiered social security system that is sustainable, fair, and unified, covering the entire population in both urban and rural areas. All regions and departments have resolutely implemented the CPC Central Committee’s decisions and arrangements, and promoted China’s employment and social security development to score historic achievements, which effectively improves the people’s lives, provides strong support for the smooth operation of the economy and social harmony and stability, and creates favorable conditions for achieving the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects as planned.

In accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, all regions and departments have firmly implemented the employment-first strategy, enriched and developed proactive employment policies, and continued to strengthen the employment-first orientation, closely focusing on achieving the goal of fuller and higher-quality employment. The employment situation has remained generally stable despite of the economic downturn and the complex and severe external environment. Relatively full employment has been achieved in a large country with more than 1.4 billion people, becoming an important support for improving people’s wellbeing and economic development.

First, the scale of urban employment has expanded constantly and the employment structure continued to be optimized. The number of urban employment increased from 372.87 million in 2012 to 467.73 million in 2021. On average, over 13 million new jobs were created in urban areas every year. The level of unemployment remained low, and the urban surveyed unemployment rate was generally lower than the expected goal. A historical change has taken place in urban and rural employment structure. In 2014, the proportion of people working in urban areas exceeded that in the countryside for the first time. In 2021, urban employed persons accounted for 62.7% of total, an increase of 13.8 percentage points from 2012. As the service sector absorbed more employment, the proportion of employed persons in primary, secondary, and tertiary industries has transformed from 33.5%, 30.4%, and 36.1% respectively in 2012 to 22.9%, 29.1%, and 48% respectively in 2021. The employment quality has been further enhanced, while the labor productivity of the whole society increased from 81,000 yuan to 146,000 yuan. The transition of workers from low productivity departments to high productivity departments has taken place. In 2021, the salary of employed persons in urban units doubled compared with that of 2012. 

Second, the employment of key groups remains stable. With the constant increase of the number of college graduates, a sound overall employment has been well kept. The total number of rural migrant workers increased from 262.61 million in 2012 to 292.51 million in 2021. With the strengthening of guarantees and supports, a total of 55.01 million unemployed persons were reemployed and 17.68 million people with employment difficulties found jobs. 

Third, the employment assistance has achieved remarkable results. Skills upgrading and jobs creation served as the most effective and direct ways of poverty alleviation. With preferential supports from aspects such as funding, policies, services and so on, the scale of employed poverty-stricken workers expanded from 12.27 million in 2015 to 32.43 million in 2020. Two-thirds of registered poverty-stricken people got rid of poverty through working outside their hometown and local industries development. With generally sustained policies, funding and human resources efforts, and strengthened employment assistance and skills upgrading targeting workers who came out of poverty, achievements of employment assistance are continuously consolidated and rural revitalization is promoted. At the end of 2021, there were 31.45 million workers across the country who had just came out of poverty, of whom 6.28 million were from the 160 counties receiving key support. 

Fourth, the quality of workers’ vocational skills continued to be improved. Efforts have been made to improve the lifelong vocational skills training system, solidly promote the reform of integration of working and learning, improve the mechanism of training, employing, evaluating and motivating skilled workers, strengthen the cultivation of high-skilled talents and extensively carry out vocational skills competitions. The quality of workers’ vocational skills has been improved markedly. The total number of skilled workers in China has increased to more than 200 million, of whom more than 60 million are high-skilled talents. We have implemented a 3-year vocational skills training initiative (2019-2021), allocating 100 billion yuan from the surplus in unemployment insurance funds. Accumulatively, more than 83 million persons have participated in subsidized vocational training programmes in various forms, through which their capacities to attain stable employment and switch jobs have been strengthened.

Fifth, the employment service system has been steadily improved. A comprehensive public employment service system is under continuous construction, and a 5-tier public employment service network, covering provinces, cities, counties, sub-districts/townships, communities/villages, has been advanced, with a higher level of standardization, intelligence and specialization. Featured activities such as Spring Breeze Action, the “10 Million Jobs in 100 Days” Online Recruitment Campaign, have achieved positive results. Every year public employment and talent service agencies at all levels provide recruitment services for 80 million workers and 50 million employers. The human resources service industry has been constantly expanding, at the end of 2021 there were 59,100 human resources service agencies across China, which effectively increase the employment service supply.

Sixth, the worker’s rights are effectively protected. Under the principles of systematic, law-based, source-contained and comprehensive governance, the institutional mechanism of fostering harmonious labor relations with Chinese characteristics has been formed. With the introduction of Regulations on Wage Payment for Rural Migrant Workers and Special Rules on Labor Protection of Female Employees, and other related rules and regulations, the approvement of amendments to Labor Contract Law, and the regulation of labor dispatch practices, the legal system of labor relations has been further improved. The government has strengthened the 3-tier labor inspection enforcement network at provincial, city and county levels, conducted monitoring and inspection on compliance of labor laws and regulations of various types of employers. With mechanisms of labor relations coordination and labor dispute mediation and arbitration improved, employment practices regulated and worker’s rights protected, labor relations maintain stable and harmonious in general.

In accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, all regions and departments have worked to boost the development of social security in an inclusive, multi-tiered and sustainable way while ensuring basic living needs in line with the requirements to help those most in need, to build a tightly woven safety net and to build the necessary institutions. We have made major breakthroughs in institutional reforms, extended the coverage of social security, steadily increased the social insurance benefits and strengthened the capacity of social security. Through unremitting efforts, China has completed a course that took developed countries more than a hundred years in just a few decades, and has successfully established the world’s largest and comprehensive social security system with distinct Chinese characteristics. The Chinese government was granted the ISSA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Social Security by the International Social Security Association (ISSA).

First, breakthroughs have been made in the reform of social security system. The integrity, completeness and coordination of the reform have been further reinforced by enhancing equity, adapting to mobility and ensuring sustainability, as well as strengthening top-level design for the social security system. We have unified the old-age insurance scheme for urban and rural residents, and merged the old-age insurance scheme of government and public institutions with that of enterprises. We have developed a multi-tiered old-age insurance system with multi-pillar at an accelerated pace, formulated measures for occupational annuity and revised measures for enterprise annuity, also established and promoted the private pension scheme. We have established a regulatory system for the central government to balance pension funding for enterprise employees across provinces and eased the pressure on fund capacity to pay in the central and western regions as well as provinces with old industry bases. We have fortified the unity and standardization of the system, unified the contribution rate for employers, and improved the responsibility sharing mechanism between central and local governments. The national overall planning of basic old-age insurance for enterprise employees is advancing in an orderly manner. In terms of work-related injury insurance, we have actively promoted the construction of an institutional system integrating “prevention, compensation and rehabilitation”. As for unemployment insurance, its functions of ensuring people’s basic living, preventing unemployment and promoting employment are further highlighted. At the same time, we are steadily implementing the pilot of occupational injury protection for workers in new forms of employment. 

Second, social security coverage has been expanded continuously. Focusing on the goal of universal coverage, we have implemented the universal social insurance plan, and accurately promoted the participation of key groups such as rural migrant workers and workers in flexible forms of employment. The number of participants of the basic old-age insurance, unemployment insurance and work-related injury insurance increased respectively from 790 million, 150 million and 190 million in 2012 to 1.03 billion, 230 million and 280 million in 2021. We have implemented the policy of paying part or all of the minimum old-age insurance contributions for groups in harsh condition, and basically realized the full coverage of social security for the eligible persons. 

Third, the standard of social insurance benefits has been steadily lifted. We have always been insisting that the level of social security should be commensurate with economic development and have steadily increased benefits of various social insurance schemes. We have established and improved the mechanism for determining and adjusting old-age pension benefits appropriately, based on which the basic old-age pension for retirees of enterprises, government and public institutions has been rising. The amount of monthly old-age pension for enterprise retirees has been increased from 1,686 yuan to 2,987 yuan on average, the monthly average unemployment insurance benefits has been increased from 707 yuan to 1,585 yuan, and the monthly average disability allowance of the work-related injury insurance has been increased from 1,864 yuan to about 4,000 yuan. 

Fourth, the capacity of ensuring people’s livelihood has been continuously strengthened. The basic old-age insurance fund in investment and operation has reached 1.46 trillion yuan, and the fund runs stable. The strategic reserve of national social security fund has increased steadily, and the central government has transferred more than 1.68 trillion yuan of state-owned capital to increase the social security fund. Fund management and supervision as well as risk prevention and control system has been improved to ensure fund safety.

Fifth, public services have been boosted to a higher level. Featuring recording, securing and serving for a lifetime, the social security management system and service network at the central, provincial, city, county and township/sub-district levels that coordinates urban and rural areas has taken shape. The regulation, standardization and informationization of our management and services have been further strengthened so that people could have quick and easy access to nearby, online and efficient social security services. The number of social security card holders has reached 1.35 billion. The national social insurance public service platform has provided national and cross-regional social insurance services including social security account check and unemployment insurance benefits application. Through the platform, cross-provincial services have been made available for the public on one website.

Sixth, social security has played a prominent role as “buffer” in economic operations. To offset the downward pressure of the economy actively, especially with the severe impact brought by COVID-19, efforts have been made to promote the coordination between social security policies and policies in other fields, which played a role in ensuring security in the operations of market entities, relieving the burdens of small and medium-sized enterprises, and stabilizing and expanding employment. The social insurance contribution rate has been reduced seven times to promote the development of the real economy and private enterprises. In 2020, we adopted unprecedented policies featuring “reduction, exemption, deferral, cut, refund, subsidy”, and as a result, 1.54 trillion yuan of contributions to basic old-age insurance, unemployment insurance and work-related injury insurance was relieved to ease burdens of enterprises. In 2021, we continued some of the policies. In 2022, policies featuring “cut, deferral, refund, subsidy and expansion” are being implemented precisely to help enterprises.

We owe these achievements to the strong leadership of the CPC Central committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, and the sound guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. Embarking on a new journey of building a modern socialist country in all respects and adhering to promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with the Chinese-style modernization, we will unite more closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core. We will ground our efforts in the new development stage, apply the new development philosophy and foster the new development paradigm to achieve fuller and higher-quality employment in the context of promoting high-quality development. We will comprehensively advance the construction of a multi-tiered social security system to promote social fairness and justice and encourage well-rounded human development. In this way, solid progress could be made towards the goal of common prosperity.