Xi urges promotion of high-quality and sufficient employment

BEIJING -- The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee held its 14th group study session on the afternoon of May 27. The topic is about promoting high-quality and sufficient employment. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the session. He said that promoting high-quality and sufficient employment is the new orientation and mission of the employment work on the new journey in the new era. Xi urged the need to adhere to people-centered development philosophy, and fully implement the guiding principle that people seek jobs on their own, market adjusts employment and the government promotes employment and encourages starting businesses. Efforts are urged to continuously improve the quality of employment and expand its quantity within a reasonable range, so as to constantly enhance the sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security among workers. In doing this, it would help provide strong support for promoting the building of a strong country in all respects through a Chinese path to modernization, and the realization of national rejuvenation.

Mo Rong, head of the Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security, gave a lecture on the high-quality and sufficient employment issue at the study session and put forth suggestions. Comrades of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee listened attentively and had discussions afterwards.

Xi delivered an important speech after listening to the lecture and discussions. He pointed out that employment is the most basic part of the people's livelihood, which is related to the people's immediate interests, the country's healthy economic and social development, and its long-term stability. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPC Central Committee has always placed employment work in a prominent position when it comes to the governance of the country, strengthened employment-first policies, and enhanced employment promotion mechanisms to effectively deal with various pressures and challenges. As a result, an average of 13 million new urban jobs were created annually, providing important support for improving people's livelihood and economic development. In practice, the CPC Central Committee has continuously deepened the understanding of the way the employment work should be done in the new era and accumulated a lot of experience. It mainly includes insisting on taking employment as the basic part of people's livelihood, implementing the employment-first strategy, promoting employment through development, combining expanding employment with improving its quality, focusing on the employment of key groups, encouraging starting businesses to create jobs, creating a fair employment environment, and adhering to building harmonious labor relations. Such practices are highly precious, and we should continue to build on them.

Xi underlined the need to unswervingly implement new development philosophy while taking high-quality and sufficient employment as a priority goal of economic and social development in a more conscious manner, so as to make high-quality development a process of expanding employment and improving its quality, and thus increase the capacity of development to create jobs. Xi said that with focus on developing new quality productive forces in light of local conditions, it is important to transform and upgrade traditional industries, foster and strengthen emerging industries, plan for the layout of future industries, improve the modern industrial system, and strive to create more high-quality jobs. He also noted that efforts are required to support the development of industries and enterprises that can create more jobs, and secure the steady expansion of employment. In light of the new trends in economic and social development and the people's new expectations for higher quality of life, Xi stressed the importance of vigorously developing new forms and models of businesses, actively exploring and cultivating new job categories, and developing new employment growth points. It is imperative to step up the assessment of the impact of major policies, major projects and distribution of major productive forces on employment, promote the coordination between employment policies and policies concerning fiscal, monetary, investment, consumption, industry and regional development, so as to make them work in the same direction and provide an employment-friendly approach.

Xi pointed out that to address the structural employment problems of imbalance between human resources supply and demand, efforts should be made to speed up the development of modern human resources with good quality, sufficient quantity, optimized structure and reasonable distribution. It is imperative to adapt to a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, and make proper judgments in advance on the trends of human resources development. It is essential to coordinate education, training and employment, make dynamic adjustment to disciplines and resources for higher education, vigorously develop vocational education, and improve the system of lifelong vocational training. The mechanism of supply and demand should be optimized so as to place right talent in right positions, put people in jobs where their expertise can best apply, make it possible for all to give full play to their talent, and improve the quality and stability of employment. Intensive public awareness activities should be organized to guide the whole society to foster a correct outlook on employment, and open up new horizons in employment through a new thinking in seeking jobs. Efforts should be made to analyze why some industries face a labor shortage, and the situation that many job seekers are unable to land a job should be addressed by finding out why there are job vacancies in some industries.

Xi stressed that policies for providing employment support for key groups should be refined. Top priority should be given to the employment of young people including college graduates, and more jobs should be created for them to apply what they have learned and what they are adept at. Young people should be encouraged to find jobs or start businesses in key fields, key industries, primary-level institutions in urban and rural areas and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, and market-oriented and social channels should be expanded for young people to find a job. It is imperative to coordinate efforts to promote new urbanization and advance rural revitalization across the board, attach equal importance to finding jobs outside hometowns and finding jobs near hometowns, take multiple steps to boost employment for migrant workers, and guide those leaving homes to work elsewhere to come back and talents from urban areas to go to rural areas to start their own businesses. It is imperative to stabilize the employment scale and income of those lifted out of poverty and see that no large number of people become poverty-stricken again due to unemployment. It is also necessary to redouble assistance to those groups who have difficulty finding employment due to old age, disability, and long-term unemployment, utilize public service positions in a coordinated manner, and secure jobs for zero-employment households. Efforts must also be made to ensure the employment of such groups as ex-service personnel and women.

Xi noted the necessity of deepening reform in employment systems and mechanisms. It is imperative to improve public services for employment and optimize public service system for employment. Efforts should also be made to improve the supportive mechanism for driving employment by entrepreneurship, optimize services for starting businesses, and boost the quality of business startups. It is also important to improve the unified and standard human resources market and create a fair and just employment environment, so as to allow everyone the opportunity to achieve self-development through hard work.

Xi stressed the need for strengthening protection of workers' rights and interests. Efforts should be made to improve labor laws and regulations, regularize labor standards for new employment forms, and optimize social security, so as to safeguard the lawful rights and interests of workers. It is imperative to further protect the rights and interests of workers involved in flexible employment and new forms of employment, expand pilot projects for work-related injury insurance, sum up experience in a timely manner and formulate institutions in this regard. Market regulation as well as oversight and law enforcement on labor security should be strengthened, and employment discrimination, wages and payments for social insurance in arrears, illegal layoffs and other problems should be effectively addressed.

Lastly, Xi pointed out that Party committees and governments at all levels should regard employment as a top priority for people's livelihood, strengthen organizational leadership, improve institutions and mechanisms, and enhance work synergy. It is necessary to accelerate the building of China's theoretical system on employment and effectively increase China's voice and influence in the field of employment on the global stage.