1st Edition

Unemployment in China Economy, Human Resources and Labour Markets

Edited By Grace O.M. Lee, Malcolm Warner Copyright 2007
    286 Pages 23 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    286 Pages 23 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Unemployment in China offers a new and invaluable insight into the Chinese economy, keenly analyzing the new directions the world's next superpower is now taking.

    Successfully bringing together a wide range of research and evidence from leading scholars in the field, this book shows how unemployment is one of the key issues facing the Chinese economy. China's market-oriented economic reform and industrial restructuring, while greatly improving efficiency, have also sharply reduced overstaffing, leading to a large increase in unemployment. 

    At the same time, further restructuring is predicted as the full impact of the accession to the WTO is felt throughout China.  A further problem is that new jobs in China's growth industries are more likely to be secured by younger, better-qualified workers than by older, poorly educated and unskilled workers who have been laid off.  This book discusses a wide range of issues related to the growing unemployment problem in China and examines the problems in particular cities, appraises the government response, and assesses the prospects going forward.

    Part 1: General  1. Setting the Scene: Unemployment in China  2. Primitive Accumulation: Transition and Unemployment in China  3. Urban Unemployment in China: A Background Analysis 1998-2003  Part 2: Themes  4. Unemployment in China and the All-China Federation of Trade  5. Women’s Unemployment and Public-Sector Restructuring: The Case of Urban China  6. Beyond the Iron Rice Bowl: Life Stage and Family Dynamics in Unemployed Chinese Workers  7. ‘No Land’ and ‘No Wage’: Unemployment in Rural China   Part 3: Case-Studies  8. Developing Labour-Market Policies in China: Shanghai’s Experience as Case Study  9. Active Labour-Market Policies in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region  10. Unemployment in the Macao Special Administrative Region  11. Steeling for Reform: State-Enterprise Restructuring and the Surplus Labour Question  12. Downsizing Strategies: Human Resource Management and Organizational Changes in Chinese Enterprises  Part 4: Conclusion  13. Conclusion: Unemployment in China

    Biography

    Malcolm Warner is Professor and Fellow Emeritus at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and Senior Research Associate at the Judge Institute of Management, Cambridge University.

    Grace O.M. Lee is Associate Professor at the Department of Public and Social Administration, City University of Hong Kong.

    "...this volume contains updated information and insightful analyses.  Scholars and students interested in unemployment problems in China should find great amounts of new information from the articles.  Unemployment in China also points to the right direction for future research." - Xiaojun Wang, China Review International: Vol. 16, No. 2, 2009