The author Hu Shaowei is a researcher with the State Information Center

China is a big country that abounds in human resources. Nothing new - the country has been under population pressure since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

In the past, the pressure found expression in the contradictions between less land and more people.

Now the strain is manifested in clashes of the labor force with capital and technology. Over the last three decades, China has adopted an efficiency-oriented economic strategy in a bid to catch up with developed countries. As a result, the government tries to replace workers with capital and technology.

However, full employment constitutes the most important basis for the harmonious economic and social development of the country, which has the biggest population of any nation and whose social security system is not yet sound.

Full employment has been put at the top of the government agenda now that the nation is engaged in building a society of harmony.

The country's economic growth model is now undergoing transformation. This transformation is necessarily accompanied by the transformation of the industrial structure and, in turn, rising unemployment.

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Now that saving energy and reducing waste-discharge constitute two vitally important factors in transforming China's development model, large numbers of small energy-consuming iron and steel mills, coal-burning thermal power plants and paper mills are expected to be closed.

The elimination of these small enterprises, which absorb a significant portion of the labor force, is bound to increase unemployment.

Last year, the government's employment policy yielded good results. The unemployment rate was only 4.1 per cent and a total of 11.84 million jobs were created.

However, labor still outstripped demand.

In view of this, a still more active employment policy ought to be formulated to promote the harmonious development of the country economically and socially.

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