Liu Lihui, DRC

2017-6-19

Focusing on supply-side structural reform, China has pushed ahead with the economic transformation and upgrading and constantly optimized the economic structure. As the quality and efficiency of China’s economic growth continuously move to a new level, new requirements are raised towards the accumulation, upgrading and allocation of human capital as well as towards the new supply-demand equilibrium of workforce and the new demand-side features of industrial human capital deserve more concerns.

The development of technology has led to workforce replacement at the low-to-medium ends of industrial chain and severe personnel shortage at the high ends. After the upgrading of technology, workers’ simple jobs have been remarkably replaced by machines and the demand for high-skilled professionals has increased. Smart enterprises are in dire need of workers of higher quality and efficiency in their technical expertise for swift development, and the innovation-driven development strategy needs a large number of high-skilled R&D professionals.

The industrial upgrading has resulted in a new trend of China’s workforce transfer and increased the demand of optimizing industrial structures. The industrial restructuring focusing on supply-side structural reform and highlighting the five priority tasks of cutting overcapacity, reducing excess inventory, deleveraging, lowering costs, and strengthening areas of weakness will bring about new impacts to the industrial workforce transfer. In the past, the redundant farmers would move to cities to look for jobs and nowadays the industrial workers would transfer to efficient sectors of the secondary industry and some to the service industry. The transfer of redundant workforce from the primary industry to other sectors has slowed down, the demand of industrial human capital is confronting a structural division in the secondary industry whereas the tertiary industry is facing a continuous growth of human capital.

China’s new round of opening-up has generated the demand for global allocation of human capital. As China gradually increases its economic aggregate, it is getting more closely engaged in global economic governance. As a result, domestic talents cannot meet the need of economic development, technological improvement and the enhancement of competitiveness among major powers. Therefore, the allocation of human resources should respond actively to the changes in terms of globalization drive.