China targets jobs, wages and training in new 5-year economic blueprint
- State Council aims to expand vocational education and ensure wages keep pace with productivity
- Plan part of renewed push drive domestic demand and move manufacturing up the value chain
China has released a five-year blueprint to boost employment, shifting focus to wage growth and expansion of the vocational education system to help drive domestic demand and upgrade industry.
Under the plan issued on Friday by the State Council, 55 million urban jobs are expected to be created by 2025 and the official urban unemployment rate capped at 5.5 per cent, compared with over 50 million positions and a 5 per cent jobless rate under the 2016-2020 plan.
In a first, the new plan also aims to “steadily raise” the share of wages in terms of GDP. And it contains a compulsory goal of an average of 11.3 years of education for the working-age population by 2025, up from 10.8 years in 2020.
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Beijing has made employment a top priority since the pandemic hit last year, ramping up the rhetoric on the need for more and better quality jobs.
But concerns about joblessness, which would also affect consumer spending and industrial overhauls, have also mounted in recent years due to the looming population crisis.
“The demographic and economic structures have changed deeply, with great in both the supply and demand of labour,” the plan said.