Economic Reform and Development the Chinese Way

The solution to our nation’s employment problems, in the final analysis, is to create a constant supply of new jobs to keep pace with economic growth. If we cannot create new jobs, the need for labor will shrink with the adoption of new technology, even if population growth is kept at a low level. How to create new jobs? This involves the diverse economic sectors and forms of public ownership under the socialist system, as well as such factors as economic administration, various types of technical innovation, and the ratios between sectors and economic growth rate. These issues, however, are beyond the scope of this study. The topic at hand is this: Supposing substantial numbers of new jobs are created by readjusting and revamping the ownership structure, the economic system and the ratios between economic sectors, and by riding the nation’s robust economic growth, can the nation come to grips with its employment problems? Given the “structural” nature of employment in our country, we can assert categorically that the disparity between the structure of the workforce and that of the national economy will never be eradicated without corresponding development in education and without restructuring the education system. The dilemma between “people hunting for jobs” and “jobs seeking takers, ”too, will remain for a long time to come. The important role of education in tackling employment problems rests precisely on its ability to deliver the nation from that dilemma.

Developing education and spending more on it can help dovetail the workforce structure with a growing economy’s need for workers at different technical levels and in different fields of work. To achieve that end, we have got to adapt our educational structure to the changing economic growth rate and structure, and act on the long-term need of economic growth to readjust the categories of schools and the setup of academic programs, and to variegate the schooling terms. Long years of observation reveal two options in this regard. In the first option, when existing and prospective job-seekers are not outnumbered by anticipated unfilled job vacancies, the main thrust of our effort can be directed at further improving education and raising workforce quality, so that every worker that has been educated or trained can qualify for more demanding jobs, thereby enhancing labor productivity and further promoting the adoption of new technology. In this way, not only can the needs of economic growth be met, but the number of unfilled job vacancies can be curtailed as well. In the other option, when the total number of existing and prospective job-hunters outgrows the anticipated number of unfilled job vacancies, we can lay equal stress on improving and universalizing education, so that more high-caliber professionals can be cultivated for the national economy while legions of job-waiters are tooled with one kind of skill or another to qualify for suitable jobs. To achieve this end, apart from further restructuring the economy to increase job vacancies, attention should also be paid to developing secondary technical and vocational education so as to put more jobseekers through training. The school term for students can be lengthened so as to curtail the number of prospective job hunters and better prepare students culturally and technically for future economic growth needs. In other words, we would rather let our youngsters learn more knowledge and skill than keep them waiting for jobs when they are ill prepared in both skill and knowledge.

As things stand today, it is believed the second option is more workable for China for a long time to come. Thus, in education development and reform, we cannot go single-mindedly after improvement to the neglect of the role of education in tackling the “structural” employment problem.

We should also remember that education reform cannot be accomplished overnight. For one thing, economic growth itself demands that our schools supply large numbers of well-educated and skilled workers who measure up to its needs. Failing this, stable and sustainable economic growth will be out of the question. For another, the economy’s ever-changing sectoral, regional and technological structures call for the adaptation of the education system. A certain level of national economic development is always consistent with a certain structure of education, with the latter changing in sync with the former. This fact should be considered when mapping out longterm national human resource plans.