[Employment in China: Challenges & Countermeasures] EP3: Vocational Training: Solving the Structural Contradiction of Employment in China

As we all know, matching the scale and structure between the demand for employment and the supply of labor force in enterprises is required to effectively tackle the employment issue, and vocational skill training offers an effective way to deal with the structural contradiction of employment.

On May 22, a plan to finance vocational training to stabilize employment was announced in the Government Work Report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang. This year and next, more than 35 million vocational skills training opportunities will be provided, and enrollment in vocational colleges will grow by two million.

In recent years, China has issued many favorable policies for vocational skills training. In May 2019, the General Office of the State Council launched a vocational skills training initiative. According to the plan, the country will allocate 100 billion yuan (US$14 billion) from the surplus in unemployment insurance funds and offer subsidized vocational skills training to more than 50 million people from 2019 to 2021. In 2019, the target of training 15 million workers was overfulfilled. By the end of 2021, the proportion of skilled workers making up the country’s total employment will reach 25 percent, while highly skilled workers will account for over 30 percent, as per the plan.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic this year, China has launched a 100-day free online skills training campaign in order to ensure the continuous implementation of vocational skills improvement actions. More than 50 online skills training platforms were selected to provide digital training resources covering more than 100 professions (types of work). As of May 15, the number of real-name registered students for online vocational training had exceeded 9.3 million, playing a positive role in the resumption of work and production.