In face of mass layoffs in Chinese internet companies and talk of a negative job market in 2019, economists said as long as more supportive policies are rolled out in a timely manner, China's employment will be stable despite downward economic pressure.
Also in the background is a brawl between a leading Chinese job site and a domestic brokerage over what the site termed an "irresponsible" report on the nation's employment and economic conditions.
"To be sure, there is risk in the employment picture at the moment. But whether this looming risk will develop into an unemployment crisis will depend on the effectiveness of Chinese government efforts in the near term," Xu Gao, chief economist at China Everbright Securities Asset Management, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
If the policies of the Central Economic Work Conference held last week are successfully implemented at the ground level, with stabilizing efforts achieving their goals, there won't be a wave of layoffs, Xu said.
"Stabilizing growth is paramount. Stable growth will translate into stable employment. Companies can't maintain employment if their businesses go sour," Xu said, predicting more support policies would be rolled out in a timely fashion.
The central government has recently announced a policy offering to refund half of the past year's unemployment insurance contributions for any company that avoids layoffs.
East China's Jiangsu Province responded to the call at once. The local government said on Tuesday that unemployed people aged 16 to 24 could hold internships for three to 12 months and receive stipends.
A master's degree holder named Liu Xingrui told the Global Times she had applied for 50 jobs in the finance sector but received only 10 replies. "I have heard this year's situation is not so good. Even if I am interning for a State-owned company, they may not give me a full-time job afterward," Liu said.
"Companies around me are cutting about 30 percent of their jobs ... to prepare for rising social security expenses next year," the owner of a logistics company surnamed Guo told the Global Times.
"My company won't renew the contracts of 35 employees at the end of the year. There will be a wave of job cuts in 2019," said Guo, who operates a medium-sized freight truck company in Nanning, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region with about 250 employees.
The unemployment insurance refund offer is too small compared with the overall cost of employing people, so its effect will be limited, Guo said.
Meanwhile, Chinese recruitment website 51job.com on Monday refuted a claim that more than 2 million job ads had disappeared from its website in recent months, adding that Tianfeng Securities, based in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, was misleading the public about China's job market and economic prospects.
"The content of that research is completely contrary to facts," 51job.com said in a statement, adding that the firm's research approach was very irresponsible.
Tianfeng Securities said in a report that from April to September, the number of job ads on the website 51job decreased from 2.85 million to 830,000, and it suggested that based on current policies and macroeconomic risks, China's employment may slump in the longer term.
However, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the urban unemployment rate in November was 4.8 percent, a 0.1 percentage point drop from both October and November last year.
The director of the population division at the NBS, Li Xiru, said recently that the rapid development of the tertiary sector can provide many jobs. An improved environment in creative industries and the internet will mean employment, Li said.
