China's Rising Unemployment Challenge
Among the major economic problems confronting China, two are particularly difficult. The problem that has lately received most attention and concern is actually the less difficult of the two. The second is not only more difficult, but also has been largely ignored in public discussion.
The easier problem is the so-called "overheated" Chinese economy, and the worry that the "bubble" may burst with serious consequences for Asia and the world economy.
China has achieved and sustained a remarkably rapid rate of economic growth -- 9.2% in 2003 and an annual rate of 9.7% in the first quarter of 2004. Along with rapid GDP growth have come various indicators of overheating. These have included a 3.5% increase in the consumer price index in the first quarter of 2004 on a year-over-year basis, a 20% rise in the money supply in 2003 partly due to foreign capital inflow and a $30 billion jump in China's foreign exchange reserves.
At China's Boao economic forum in April, President Hu Jintao explicitly acknowledged the overheating problem, while expressing confidence that it can be controlled and a "hard landing" avoided. There are reasonably strong grounds for his confidence. Awareness of the problem by China's top policymakers is an encouraging sign as is their recognition of the various policy instruments they can employ in a timely manner to forestall and mitigate the problem. These instruments include raising interest rates, boosting capital and reserve requirements in the four main state banks, and installing and enforcing more rigorous standards of risk assessment for bank lending under the guidance of China's Banking Regulatory Commission.
China's monetary policymakers are reluctant to push these instruments very hard lest they overshoot and, in the process, precipitate a sharp fall in the economy's performance. Instead, curbs have been imposed on bank lending in certain overheated sectors, including steel and automobile production. These modest, piecemeal efforts seem to be having a cooling effect: growth in both the money supply and in bank lending has been lowered by 2% or 3% in the past few months although consumer prices continue to rise. In any event, if the limited measures invoked thus far turn out to be insufficient, prudent use of the other policy instruments should enable the brakes to be applied without producing a hard landing. While China isn't out of the woods yet with its overheated economy, the problem appears manageable.
The problem that is more difficult to resolve springs from a dilemma presented by two economic objectives both of which are of crucial importance for China's future: sustaining a high rate of economic growth and also generating ample job opportunities for large numbers of unemployed and underemployed workers. For political and social as well as economic reasons achieving a high rate of job creation is no less important than is sustaining a high rate of GDP growth.
Although the two objectives are usually viewed as compatible and even mutually reinforcing, there is a fundamental tension between them. This tension arises because of the two-sided effects of rising labor productivity.
GDP growth is enhanced by boosting labor productivity, but the employment-generating effects of GDP growth, per unit of growth, are lowered as labor productivity rises. Stated another way, increased labor productivity -- defined as output per worker, or per hour of labor -- is of central importance in propelling economic growth, but the more rapidly labor productivity increases the less new employment is created by economic growth.
According to conventional wisdom, China's huge 1.3 billion population provides a virtually inexhaustible supply of low-cost labor which, along with more globalized markets, presents strong competitive challenges to industries and firms in other countries. What is less well recognized is that globalization also creates a serious challenge for China and its policymakers. For China to sustain a high rate of economic growth it must combine labor with technology, management, design, and marketing as well as capital. The effect of this combination is to raise the productivity of labor substantially and continually. The inevitable result of rising labor productivity is to reduce significantly the added employment generated by economic growth.
The rate of increase in employment is precisely equal to the difference between the rate of GDP growth and the rate of growth in labor productivity. If and as labor productivity rises, generating a specified number of additional jobs requires a still higher rate of growth in GDP.
During the four-year interval between the end of 1998 and the end of 2002, China's GDP rose from 7.8 trillion yuan ($946 billion), to 10.6 trillion yuan ($1.28 trillion) in constant prices, an annual increase of 7.8%. During the same interval labor productivity rose from 11,100 yuan to 14,380 yuan per worker, an annual rate of increase of over 6.7%. According to China's official statistics, employment during the four-year period rose to 737 million from 706 million, an annual increase of 1%.
Thus, while China's economy was growing at the highest annual growth rate, 7.8%, of any of the world's principal economies, its increase in employment was only 1% annually.
China's employment problem is more serious than these numbers suggest. Notwithstanding the reported increase in total employment of 31 million between 1998 and 2002, registered urban unemployment increased to 4% from 3% -- to 10 million from 6.7 million -- while urban employment was growing to 248 million from 224 million. Thus, the number of new urban jobs was 10 million less than the number of workers seeking them.
These numbers are only the tip of the unemployment iceberg. Research by RAND indicates that when proper allowance is made for "disguised" rural unemployment as well as "unregistered" urban unemployment, China's actual unemployment rate soars to an estimated 23% of the total labor force. (The term "disguised" unemployment refers to labor that is reported as nominally employed, but in fact does not add to output -- in the U.S. labor market, "featherbedding" is a nearly-equivalent term).
The strains and stresses that will result from the persistent masses of China's unemployed and underemployed labor are difficult to assess but hard to overestimate. China's employment problems are a deeper, more long-term, and potentially more serious challenge to economic and social stability than is the temporarily high temperature of its economy.
Mr. Wolf is senior economic adviser and corporate fellow in international economics at the RAND Corporation, and a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
中国的就业形势面临严峻挑战
查尔斯?沃尔夫(CHARLES WOLF JR)
在中国所面临的主要经济问题中，有两个问题是最难解决的。其中的一个最近已经吸引了人们很多的关注，也令人感到最担心，可其实它还是两个问题中比较容易解决的一个。另一个问题，不仅难解决，而且公众舆论居然几乎将它忽略了。
这个相对容易的问题就是所谓的中国“经济过热”，世人都担心如果中国经济的泡沫破灭，将给亚洲经济乃至全球经济带来严重后果。
中国经济这些年一直保持了高速的增长，去年经济增长率达到9.2%，今年第一季度折合成年率增长了9.7%。除了国内生产总值(GDP)的快速增长，其他一些迹象也显示出中国经济已经过热。比如，2004年第一季度消费者价格指数较上年同期上涨3.5%；2003年的货币供应量增长了20%（一定程度上是外资流入所致）；以及中国的外汇储备激增了300亿美元。
在2004年4月中国举办的博鳌论坛上，中国国家主席胡锦涛明确谈到了中国经济过热的问题，同时坚定的表示，这个问题一定会得到控制，中国经济不会出现“硬著陆”。中国高层能够意识到这个问题是个好兆头，这样政策制定者就能及时动用各种政策工具来控制经济，减轻问题可能产生的负面影响。可以采用的工具有：上调利率，提高四大国有商业银行的资本和准备金要求，在中国银监会(China's Banking Regulatory Commission)的指导下对放贷实行更严格的风险评估。
中国的货币政策制定者不愿意过多地使用这些工具，担心在放缓经济增长的过程中用力过猛会导致经济增长的急剧降温。但是，他们加紧控制银行对钢铁、汽车等过热行业放贷。这些温和的微调措施似乎已经开始见效：最近几个月，货币供应量和银行信贷已经减少了2%-3%，尽管物价水平仍然在上涨。不管怎样，如果目前已经采取的措施被证明力度还不够的话，可以再谨慎使用其他政策工具，尽量防止发生经济的“硬著陆”。虽然中国目前还没有完全解决经济过热的问题，但这个问题看上去还是可以驾驭的。
另一个更难解决的问题源于由两个对中国未来都很重要的经济目标造成的两难处境。一个目标是保持经济的高速度增长；另一个目标是创造足够多的就业机会。不管从政治、社会还是从经济的角度考虑，迅速创造就业岗位的重要性都不亚于保持经济的高速增长。
虽然这两个目标通常被认为并不冲突，甚至是相互促进的。但由于劳动生产率的提高具有“双刃性”，这就造成了两个目标之间根本上的不协调。
劳动生产率提高会促进经济的增长，但因经济增长而形成的就业增加可能会因劳动生产率的提高而受到削弱。换句话说，提高劳动生产率对推动经济增长至关重要，但生产率提高的越快，经济增长所能创造的就业岗位就越少。
通常认为，拥有十三亿人口使中国有取之不尽，用之不竭的廉价劳动力，而目前正值全球化浪潮盛行，这使其他国家的行业和公司的竞争力都面临挑战。但人们没有看到的是，全球化也给中国和中国的政策制定者们带来了重大挑战。中国要想保持高速的经济增长，劳动力因素必须与技术、管理、设计、营销以及资本等其他因素有机结合。这些因素相结合后就会不断带来劳动生产率的大幅提高，其结果势必是经济增长所创造的就业岗位大量减少。
就业增长率等于经济增长率与劳动生产率增长率的差额。劳动生产率提高以后，创造一定数量的就业就要求有比原来更高的经济增长率。
从1998年底到2002年底的四年间，中国实际国内生产总值从人民币7.8万亿元(9,460亿美元)增加至10.6万亿元(1.28万亿美元)，年增长率为7.8%。同样在这四年中，劳动生产率从每个工人创造11,100元提高至14,380元，年增长率超过6.7%。据中国官方的统计数据显示，这四年间的就业岗位数从7.06亿个增加到7.37亿亿个，年增幅为1%。
因此，虽然中国经济以每年7.8%的增长速度傲视世界其他主要经济体，但其就业水平每年仅仅增长1%。
事实上，中国就业状况中的存在的问题远远比上述数字所揭示的更加严峻。尽管这四年间就业岗位一共增加了3,100万个，但城市登记失业人口从3%增加到4% -- 从670万人增加到1,000万人；城市就业人口从2.24亿人增加到2.48亿人。可见，城市中仍然存在1,000万个岗位的就业缺口。
这些数据还只是冰山一角。兰德公司(Rand Corporation)进行的一项调查显示，如果合理地将农村“隐形”失业人口和城市“未登记”的失业人口包括在内，中国实际的失业人数应当占到劳动力总数的大约23%。（“隐形”失业人口是指那些名义上未失业，其实并不贡献产出的人口，类似于美国劳动力市场上所说的“超额雇佣工人”。）
长期存在的大量失业或就业不足人口对中国经济的影响将难以估量。与暂时的经济过热相比，中国的人口就业问题是个更深刻、更长久而且对经济和社会稳定影响更严重的问题。
沃尔夫是兰德公司的高级经济顾问和国际经济学研究员，他还是胡佛研究所(Hoover Institution)的高级研究员。
