Ensuring coherence and organic integration among various policies is inherent to improving the efficacy of macroeconomic governance.
Employment is the foundation of people’s livelihoods. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized the need to “build an employment-friendly development model.” How can we translate this “employment-friendly” philosophy into tangible practice?
Recently, Hunan Province issued its Several Measures for Advancing the Action Plan on Stabilizing Posts, Expanding Capacity, and Improving Quality. The document strengthens the coordinated linkage between industry and employment, further refines the employment impact assessment mechanism, and mandates no fewer than 500 annual consistency evaluations of employment-related policies.
Embedding employment impact assessments throughout the entire decision-making process for major development initiatives helps ensure a smooth transition for workers during industrial transformation and upgrading. This represents a vivid example of closely integrating investment in physical infrastructure with investment in human capital, while also highlighting the “employment-friendly” principle within the consistency evaluation of macro-policy orientations.
Why does the labor market suffer from the mismatch of “vacancies without candidates” and “jobseekers without vacancies”? A key driver of structural unemployment lies in the failure to coordinate industrial planning with educational layouts and employment arrangements.
To comprehensively promote high-quality and full employment, employment factors must be fully considered at the decision-making stage—managing industries means managing employment, boosting consumption means boosting employment, and launching projects means expanding employment.
Such reform explorations are already underway across China. Tiantai County in Zhejiang has established an employment impact assessment mechanism for major projects, giving decisions a hard benchmark of “job content.” Guizhou has implemented its “Six-Six Employment Stabilization Plan,” deeply integrating employment targets with economic development goals. From gatekeeping in decision-making and targeted services to institutional innovation, making employment a “hard constraint” and continuously promoting the synergy between industrial growth and employment enhancement allows economic growth to retain an “employment-friendly” warmth.
Macroeconomic policy constitutes a complex system encompassing fiscal, monetary, employment, industrial, regional, scientific, technological, and environmental dimensions. While each policy has its specific focus, it inevitably exerts direct or indirect effects on other domains. Building an employment-friendly development model requires driving the coordinated interaction of employment policies with other economic and social policies to form synergistic momentum.
In investment policy, channel more funding toward human capital so that labor resources better match job demands. In fiscal policy, leverage social insurance subsidies and tax breaks to incentivize private enterprises to hire more college graduates. In science and technology, promote models such as “scientific achievements plus entrepreneurship” and “public needs plus entrepreneurship,” tailored to the characteristics and demands of young groups like college graduates. Adhering to a systemic perspective and taking a holistic view of economic development, we must meticulously assess how each policy affects aggregate demand and supply, industrial and regional structures, and employment and expectations. Ensuring coherence and organic integration among all policies remains essential to enhancing the efficacy of macroeconomic governance.
“Employment is a family affair; even more so, it is a National Affair.” Strengthening the consistency and effectiveness of macro-policy orientations, fostering mutual reinforcement between industrial upgrading and employment expansion, and aligning high-quality development with high-quality, full employment are imperative for shaping new advantages in the Chinese economy.
(Liaowang New Era)