Op-Ed Contributors

More jobs, better society

By Ding Jin (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-14 08:19

Policymakers should make employment generation and raising people's income top priorities to boost consumption

Employment has become the theme of the post-global financial crisis era. But China's macroeconomic policy has not yet made employment the prime target on its development agenda. Its current targets mainly include economic growth, job creation, price stabilization, and improving the balance of payments.

The annual session of the National People's Congress in March concluded that the country's economy was likely to grow by about 8 percent in 2010, more than 9 million urban residents would find jobs, the urban registered unemployment rate was likely to be within 4.6 percent, the rise in the consumer price index would be about 3 percent and the balance of payments would improve.

For long, "economic growth" has been China's primary development goal, with all other factors helping it to achieve it. For example, the third article of the Law of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on the People's Bank of China, adopted in 1995, stipulates that the aim of its monetary policy is to maintain the stability of its currency and thus promote economic growth.

The Budget Law of the PRC, which took effect in 1995, says the law has been enacted in accordance with the Constitution to strengthen the distribution and supervisory function of the budget, improve the State's budget management, intensify the macroeconomic regulation and control and ensure sound socio-economic development. None of them talks explicitly about making employment generation a primary target.

The two laws were formulated in the mid-1990s, when China was experiencing fast economic growth which, in turn, led to high employment growth rates. But since the late 1990s, economic growth has failed to generate the same percentage of jobs.