Structural transformation and key emerging employment and social challenges for China

A policy workshop to deliberate on the Future of Work and its relationship to China’s economic developments and policy choices .

Background

China has surfaced as a major player in the global scene with its population of 1.3 billion and the second largest economy in the world. Indeed, against this background, developments and policy choices in China will greatly affect what the Future of Work will look like for women and men across the world.

Globally, a set of key underlying drivers form the way the current and future labour markets are constructed. Weak economic growth and stagnation in some parts of the world have led to questions about the economies’ capacity to create jobs. Globalization has given impetus for new production models, such as global value chains in particular. Technological change affects employment outcomes, as some jobs are lost while new ones are created. Demographic change, in turn, leads to an aging workforce in some parts of the world, while some economies continue to demonstrate a younger population pyramid. Migration produces different effects in receiving and sending countries, most notably helping some countries to bridge their labour force shortages while others may lack skilled workforce as a result of the same. The global labour markets are also moving towards a pattern where non-standard forms of work have become the standard: according to the ILO flagship report World Employment and Social Outlook of May 2015 entitled “The Changing Nature of Jobs”, fewer than 45 per cent of wage and salaried workers are employed on a full-time, permanent basis.

With the objective of promoting Decent Work for All, the ILO is keen to find ways in which governance systems, policies and legislation can provide responses that help achieve Decent Work in the changed global context and in particular with a view to expected changes in the future of work. First, it will be important to analyse and debate central future of work scenarios in different contexts. In China, industrial transformation into high-value manufacturing and services is a key reform theme, and it will be important to estimate the effects of technological change, including robotization, on employment, labour productivity and inequality in that regard. Immediately surging from this discussion are issues of social stability and cohesion in the context of rapid industrial restructuring, particularly with a view to discussing the role of social dialogue and social support mechanisms, such as labour market policies and social protection.

Second, the different possibilities for governance of work in the future should be analysed. The increasingly blurred lines of the employee-employer relationship raise questions on conventional tripartite institutions. Indeed, these institutions are needed on the part of industrial relations actors and institutions to cope with the changing patterns of employment and labour relations and diversified labour practices at the workplace; ensure that the wealth created through economic growth benefits all segments of society; and better reflect the features and needs of the networked, digital and knowledge-based economies and societies. However, the representation of workers and employers is a challenge in many contexts. The role of labour regulations and norms also needs to be considered carefully. Several of the core concepts underlying labour law areas are closely connected to economic and social circumstances prevailing in industrialized countries in the early to mid-twentieth century. With the evolving nature of the world of work, it can be argued that labour law needs to adapt through altering some of the assumptions that underpinned its development in the 20th century. Equally this applies to international labour standards.

Objectives

The workshop aims to fulfill two main objectives, notably to:
  • set the context that paves the way for how the future labour markets will look like, including discussing experiences of structural transformation in other countries, and to
  • brainstorm on the Future of Work and the role of multilateral institutions in that regard.

Outputs

Key issues in the changing labour market and work place in the Future of Work as inputs into the process for the development of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan.

Participants

50 representatives from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, and national research institutions and universities.