China faces an unemployment crisis

[RichardE]

14 million jobless as booming China fails to grow fast enough
BENJAMIN ROBERTSON
IN BEIJING
CHINA is facing an unemployment crisis of an unprecedented scale, government economic planners have warned.

New figures from China's National Development and Reform Commission indicate a shortfall this year of fourteen million jobs, a pattern that they predict will continue for at least five years and one likely to exacerbate concerns over rising crime rates and social unrest.


This year, say the NDRC, an estimated twenty five million people will be chasing eleven million jobs, mostly along the country's wealthier eastern seaboard.

Despite a runaway economy and near double-digit growth, China is simply not growing fast enough.

The image of mass unemployment in a country so often referred to as the workshop of the world is at odds with the picture of the country painted by some western politicians.

Members of the US Congress are debating whether to accuse China of currency manipulation and pave the way for punitive economic reprisals in the form of higher import duties. They claim the yuan is kept weak, giving Chinese exporters an advantage over US competitors.

"The government is racking its brains to create jobs as it braces itself for a really tough year," Guo Yue, a researcher with China's ministry of labour and social security told state media.

Indicative of this, starting salary expectations among graduates have dropped in recent years from £200 a month to just £70.

And with the move to a market economy causing the closure of thousands of inefficient factories and companies, millions of workers used to the "iron rice bowl" safety net of a job for life have been left to fend for themselves.

While the official unemployment rate hovers around 5 per cent, most analysts suspect it is at least double that. In some communities, like the north-east, which was once China's industrial heartland, studies have suggested unemployment tops 40 per cent. Chinese cities, once models for egalitarianism, are now home to small armies of beggars.

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=267102006


As fast as there growth is, there economy is failing to provide people with the neccesities. China had hoped to mix communism and capitalism, and it is backfiring. I can see a revolution in China's future.

 

[bctbct]

Hope this doesnt mean their wages will go lower.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Guess we're not shipping the American jobs over there fast enough.

 

[Legend]

What is like, 3% unemployment?

 

[techs]

From what I have read there is a mass influx from the rural areas to the cities of people in search of jobs. So "unemployed" may mean something different than we think of it.
Basically its young people who no longer want to work on the family farm, family business etc. but are now job seekers in the sense they are looking for manufacturing work.
With such a vast and growing pool of potential employees Chinas wages won't go up anytime soon.

 

[MadRat]

I think techs is close to the mark with his first two sentences. China has always survived high unemployment per se. I doubt their economic planners were ready to cope with the population shift. The old regime had a totalitarian outlook over their population, largely controlling their urbanization and issues like fecundity by using overbearing centralized control. The old regime's power has slipped ever so slightly year by year and they are becoming ineffective at directing the population. Surely a revolution on some scale will take place. They've survived 5000 years as a civilization for the very fact they are so good at adaption to changes in technology and culture, I have no doubt they'll survive these changes.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I think China will be fine. The Chinese leadership has some sort of understanding of economics. It's us I'm worried about.

 

[ntdz]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

I think China will be fine. The Chinese leadership has some sort of understanding of economics. It's us I'm worried about.

Yeah, just check out that sky high gdp/capita that barely ranks them in the top 100 of the world.

 

[HombrePequeno]

The CIA World Factbook says their overall unemployment is around 20% (rural and urban combined). That blows but considering that the country is still developing, it's not too bad.

 

[ntdz]

Originally posted by: HombrePequeno
The CIA World Factbook says their overall unemployment is around 20% (rural and urban combined). That blows but considering that the country is still developing, it's not too bad.

That's 300 million unemployed people, or the population of the USA. How do you even begin to solve that???

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: ntdz

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

I think China will be fine. The Chinese leadership has some sort of understanding of economics. It's us I'm worried about.

Yeah, just check out that sky high gdp/capita that barely ranks them in the top 100 of the world.

Well, with one and a half billion people, any per capita number will rank low..

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: ntdz

Yeah, just check out that sky high gdp/capita that barely ranks them in the top 100 of the world.

Let's check it out again in 100 years... Then let's look at the U.S. median income and population.

Of course, as you know, my prediction, based on assuming that current trends and policies will continue unabated or that they will intensify, is that the U.S. will look more like India does today, with an out-of-control population explosion and rampant poverty.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: HombrePequeno
The CIA World Factbook says their overall unemployment is around 20% (rural and urban combined). That blows but considering that the country is still developing, it's not too bad.

Yup. They're still recovering from decades of despotic, backwards communism. It's going to take decades to repair the damage.

 

[techs]

Gee, I wonder what will happen when the "unemployed" are fed up and the factory workers want more money?
I see a Communist revolution in their future.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Originally posted by: techs

Gee, I wonder what will happen when the "unemployed" are fed up and the factory workers want more money?
I see a Communist revolution in their future.

Hmm, I see lots and lots of low paid Chinese labors working for the Arab UAE Corporations in the Seaports of America.

UAE is a weird mix - 80% of it's population is foriegners, on work visas.
Already using conex loads of Chinese to do the work there.

 

[piasabird]

I find it kind of difficult to shed a tear for a communist country. It is difficult to say what an improved economical condition in China will have an effect on the rest of the world. If they start driving cars then that could cause a shortage in Oil or run up the cost of steel or other products. On the other hand if they start to consume more products they may decide they want foreign products. China tends to buy chinese products more than western products so it is hard to say what major effect the chinese would have. Of course if their economy fell apart, then that could cause all kinds of problems. Look at the diseases we see today and ask yourself where they come from. Bird Flu came from China; we think. China coiuld be costing us, in the long run, more than we are saving by doing business with them!

Disclaimer:
I have no hatred of China, I just am looking at the facts. For the most part the chinese are probably just a swell bunch of people. It is their government that I have the most problems with.