Employment and Unemployment in China: Fact and Fancy
China is determined to close thousands of state-owned factories in red ink and lay off millions of surplus workers to make the state industrial sector profitable within three years. This it hopes to accomplish against a background of a long cherished social stability. Due to that and accelerating sectoral shifts among industries and regions, unemployment has become the government’s number one problem and the people’s top concern. The increasing urban jobless and rural labor surplus are to test the country’s new leaders who are expected to usher the world’s most populous nation into the 21st century as a peaceful and growing economic force.
