Agricultural surplus labor transfer

Abstract

Unemployment is a serious problem China faces in its current economic transition. Millions of urban workers have been laid off or furloughed, and some estimates put the number of unemployed people in rural areas at 175 million, or 34.8 percent of the rural labor force. The potential threat of unemployment to social stability has been a primary concern of the Chinese government in determining the pace of economic reform. Whether the unemployed can be accommodated properly will in part determine the success or failure of the plans to reform Chinas inefficient state enterprises (People’s Daily, January 13, 1998).