By Zhang Bingzi, Ge Yanfeng & Ke Yanghua, Research Team on “Chinese People’s Livelihood”, DRC

Research Report, No.88, 2021 (Total 6153) 2021-4-16

Abstract: At the beginning of 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 had a serious impact on China’s employment. But China’s labor market has shown strong resilience. According to the survey data of “People’s Livelihood in China”, the employment level in July-August 2020 has been close to that of the same period in 2019, the satisfaction of the employed has also remained stable, and the employment level of the young and middle-aged people and the university and college graduates is relatively high. However, the quality of employment is still greatly affected. The proportion of workers who say their employment situation has improved or their labor income has increased has decreased significantly, and the proportion of non-permanently-employed workers such as freelance workers, temporary workers and self-employed workers has increased. The proportion of employed people who worry about unemployment has increased, and the people are less able to cope with the risk of unemployment. Policies and measures to protect employment, people's livelihood and market players have played an important role in responding to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, the short-term impact has exposed long-term structural problems. In the future, targeted measures need to be taken to further strengthen the employment-first policy.

Keywords: employment-first policy, employment situation, pandemic impact