Employers squeezed by social security

Easing companies' social security payment obligations would reduce business costs and encourage hiring, according to experts who have studied the issue.

The annual Central Economic Work Conference, a tone-setting meeting for the 2016 national economic agenda, called for reducing companies' social security expenses and for studying ways to streamline other administrative payments, according to a statement issued afterward.

For Chinese economists, the statement is an overdue acknowledgment of a problem businesspeople have complained about for years: the high costs of running a business. Lowering those costs is a central piece of China's supply-side reform.