Key facts
- China's State Council issued a five-year employment plan.
- The plan aims to keep the job market stable and prevent mass unemployment.
- It will support labor-intensive sectors and expand employment in services.
- AI development will be leveraged for job creation and entrepreneurship.
- The plan targets adding over 55 million new urban jobs between 2021 and 2025.
China's State Council has unveiled its latest five-year employment plan, signaling a commitment to maintaining stability in the job market and mitigating risks of widespread unemployment. The strategy emphasizes bolstering employment in labor-intensive sectors such as light manufacturing, textiles, foreign trade, and construction, while simultaneously fostering growth in service industries like elderly care, childcare, and tourism.
Furthermore, the plan outlines an adaptive approach to the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, aiming to harness its potential for promoting employment, entrepreneurship, and enhancing public services through new forms of human-machine collaboration. This initiative is part of China's broader proactive job-creation measures, with a goal to add over 55 million new urban jobs during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).
Recent data indicates progress towards these goals, with China's average urban unemployment rate at 5.2% in 2025, below the government's target of 5.5%, and approximately 12.67 million new urban jobs created in the same year. These outcomes are attributed to supportive measures, including significant reductions in unemployment insurance premiums for employers and substantial job stabilization refunds. The government has also invested in skills training, covering over 11 million job seekers, and organized numerous job fairs to connect graduates with employers, facilitating millions of preliminary job matches.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security is set to implement further policies, including specific measures to address the impact of AI on employment and expand social insurance coverage for gig and flexible workers. Targeted training programs are planned to enhance workforce skills in areas such as new energy vehicles and AI, alongside initiatives to support key industries and demographic groups.