By Zhou Lingling, Research Institute of Resources and Environment Policies, DRC

Research Report, No.298, 2020 (Total 6042) 2020-12-14

Abstract: In the era of digital economy, the needs for skills shift rapidly. Some low-skill posts are increasingly advanced, which demands higher requirements for skill transition. Meanwhile, new vocations keep springing up, with suitable skill combinations and lifelong learning being more and more important. In the past two decades, China’s labor market features a greater demand than supply for workers with technical certifications and professional titles, and corporate employment shows that there is still a large skill-oriented human resource gap in China. For the “Fourteenth Five-year Plan”, this report recommends the following for improvement: focus on the “two overall situations” and build the new development landscape; center on key industries, fields, areas and groups, and differentiate designs for skill-oriented human resource capital investment strategy according to new situations；combine pre-work training and vocational training, and coordinate universal and special skills; break the institutional barrier between vocational education and universal education; strengthen the role of enterprises as the main entity and introduce market-based vocational training step by step. Vocations in urgent demand need to be analyzed and publicized in time. It is also necessary to make forecasts about skill needs through profession predications, so as to make training more targeted and effective.

Keywords: Fourteenth Five-year Plan, skill-oriented human resource capital, skill demand, skill demand gap