Manufacturing employment in China

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 128, Issue 7, 2005, Pages 11-29

  Banister, Judith ^a,b  

^a Javelin Investments   (China)

^b U S CENSUS BUREAU   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 28244447669     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: 00981818     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (83)

1. Judith Banister, "Manufacturing Employment and Compensation in China," on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/fls/#publications.
2. See Jeffrey R. Taylor and Judith Banister, Statistical Reliability in China (U.S. Census Bureau, 1989).
3. Carsten A. Holz, The Institutional Arrangements for the Production of Statistics, Statistics Directorate, OECD-China Governance Project, OECD Statistics Working Paper STD/DOC (2005), 1 (Paris, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2005), p. 5.
4. Banister, "Manufacturing Employment and Compensation in China." (See "Ministries" in the "Glossary and Definitions" section of that paper for a list of the ministries involved in the collection and reporting of manufacturing employment in China.)
5. For relevant Chinese language terms, see Banister, "Manufacturing Employment and Compensation in China." "Actual situation," "labor situation," and "yearend number of workers" are defined in the "Glossary and Definitions" section of that paper.
6. Copies of the enterprise statistical reporting form (laodong qingkuang biao, or "labor situation form") for 2004 were submitted to urban authorities by the end of February 2004 and reported 2003 data for urban companies and work units; wage-reporting instructions (laodong gongzi - tongji taizhang, or "labor wages - statistical accounts") for 2004 were from the Beijing Municipality Statistical Bureau. (See especially p. 2-1 of the latter.)
7. The TVE'S were originally established as collective economic units run by local governments in rural areas and towns. The purpose of TVE'S was, and still is, to employ small farmers and rural laborers in industrial or service occupations in locations not far from their family homes. This practice allows the modernization of China's vast countryside without necessitating massive migration from villages to cities. In the 1980s, and especially from the 1990s to today, TVE'S shifted from public toward private ownership, and many foreign-funded enterprises became classified as TVE'S. Now the TVE category, in addition to encompassing small local enterprises, can include very large factories in industrial parks outside cities, as well as suburban, town, and rural factories. Indeed, companies have incentives to have their factories classified as TVE'S because mandatory social insurance payments are very low, statistical reporting requirements are minimal, and many legal and taxation benefits accrue to TVE'S.
8. See Banister, "Manufacturing Employment and Compensation in China." Some of the terms are defined in the "Glossary and Definitions" section of this paper.
9. China National Bureau of Statistics and China Ministry of Labor, compilers, China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003 (Beijing, China Statistics Press, 2003), p. 638.
10. See also China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003, pp. 13, 230.
11. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003 Ibid., p. 249.
12. Enterprise statistical reporting forms, 2004;
13. wage-reporting instructions, 2004.
14. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003, p. 169.
15. China State Administration for Industry and Commerce, Zhongguo gongshang xingzheng guanli nianjian 2003 (Yearbook of the Industry and Commerce Administration of China 2003) (Beijing, China Industry and Commerce Press, 2003), pp. 583, 587.
16. See also Ming Lu, Jianyoung Fan, Shejian Liu, and Yan Yan, "Employment restructuring during China's economic transition," Monthly Labor Review, August 2002, pp. 25-31; on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/ opub/mlr/2002/08/art3full.pdf.
17. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003, p. 10.
18. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003 Ibid., p. 20.
19. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003 Ibid., p. 243.
20. See also Banister, "Manufacturing Employment and Compensation in China." The terms laid-off staff and workers, not-on-post staff and workers, off-post staff and workers, and on-past staff and workers are defined in the "Glossary and Definitions" section of that paper.
21. Ray Brooks and Ran Tao, "China 's Labor Market Performance and Challenges," IMF Working Paper WP/03/210 (Beijing, International Monetary Fund, November 2003); on the Internet at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/ 2003/wp03210.pdf;
22. see also Robert H. McGuckin and Matthew Spiegelman, China's Experience with Productivity and Jobs (New York, The Conference Board, 2004), p. 12.
23. See Banister, "Manufacturing Employment and Compensation in China." The term unemployment rate is defined in the "Glossary and Definitions" section of that paper.
24. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003, pp. 96, 126.
25. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003 Ibid., p. 637.
26. Thomas G. Rawski, Recent Developments in China's Labor Economy (Geneva, International Labor Office, November 2003) (revised from a report prepared in January 2002).
27. McGuckin and Spiegelman, China's Experience, p. 5.
28. See Changming Li, China Industrial Development Report 1997 (Beijing, Economic Management Press, 1997), especially Chapter 11, "China's textile industry: From size to strength";
29. also in Christopher Howe, Y. Y. Kueh, and Robert Ash (eds.), China 's Economic Reform: A Study with Documents (London, RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), pp. 165-75.
30. McGuckin and Spiegelman, China's Experience, pp. 4-5, 11-13, 17.
31. The calculation procedure for estimating the nationwide employed population from the long-form sample sidesteps the problem that there was a severe undercount of children below age 10 or so in the 2000 census. The count of the population aged 15 years and older in the 2000 census was quite complete, in that it matched the expected adult population as projected from the 1990 census and taking into account all available demographic information for the interim period, even though there is controversy about whether some young and middleaged adults were counted in the wrong places. (See Weimin Zhang and Hongyan Cui, "Dui Zhongguo 2000 nian renkou pucha zhunque xing de guji" ("Estimates of the accuracy of China's 2000 population census"), Renkou yanjiu (Population Research), vol. 27, no. 4, 2003, pp. 25-35;
32. Kam Wing Chan, "Chinese census 2000: New opportunities and challenges," The China Review, Fall 2003, pp. 1-12;
33. Daniel Goodkind and Gregory Robinson, "Intercensal evaluations of year 2000 censuses: Issues and surprises in the United States and China," paper presented at the International Seminar on China's 2000 Population and Housing Census, Beijing, April 2004.
34. Alwyn Young, Gold into base metals: Productivity growth in the People 's Republic of China during the reform period, NBER Working Paper Series no. 7856 (Cambridge, MA, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2000), pp. 22-23.
35. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003, pp. 8-9.
36. China National Bureau of Statistics, Tabulation on the 2000 Population Census of the People's Republic of China, vol. 2 [in Chinese] (Beijing, China Statistics Press, 2002), pp. 1578-79.
37. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003, pp. 23, 362.
38. Wage-reporting instructions, 2004, p. 1-2.
39. Compare "Di wu ci quanguo renkou pucha biao chang biao" ("The fifth national population census form, long form") (Beijing, China National Bureau of Statistics, 2000), columns R17-R22, with China National Bureau of Statistics, China Statistical Yearbook 2003 (Beijing, China Statistics Press, 2003), p. 181.
40. China National Bureau of Statistics, Tabulation on the 2000 Population Census of the People's Republic of China, vol. 1, p. 570;
41. Tabulation on the 2000 Population Census of the People's Republic of China vol. 2, pp. 800, 1269.
42. See Banister, "Manufacturing Employment and Compensation in China." The terms urban and rural are defined in the "Glossary and Definitions" sections of that paper.
43. Tabulation on the 2000 Population Census of the People's Republic of China, vol. 2, pp. 888, 942, 996, 1050.
44. Louise Fox and Yaohui Zhao, "China's labor market reform: Performance and prospects," background paper for the China 2002 Country Economic Memorandum (Washington, DC, World Bank, 2002), p. 27.
45. Most of the information that follows is from an interview with NBS statistics officials in Beijing Jan. 10, 2005.
46. Holz, The Institutional Arrangements, p. 12.
47. The Institutional Arrangements Ibid., p. 17.
48. See Judith Banister, "Manufacturing earnings and compensation in China," Monthly Labor Review, forthcoming, August 2005.
49. China Statistical Yearbook 2003, p. 181.
50. Enterprise statistical reporting forms, 2004;
51. wage-reporting instructions, 2004, pp. 1-1 to 1-2.
52. China Statistical Yearbook 2003, p. 123;
53. Loraine A. West, discussant, BLS seminar, Washington, DC, Nov. 8, 2004.
54. "2004 nian chengzhen laodongli diaocha zhidu" ["The 2004 Urban Labor Force Survey System"] (China National Bureau of Statistics, Nov. 17, 2004), p. 20.
55. China Statistical Yearbook 2003, pp. 146-47.
56. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003, p. 8.
57. Young also showed that the official NBS and Labor Ministry compilation of national manufacturing employment in 1995 was highly inconsistent with the 1995 industrial census results. (See Young, Gold into base metals, 2000, p. 22 and table XI.)
58. Holz, The Institutional Arrangements, pp. 15-16.
59. Young, Gold into base metals, 2000, pp. 22-23.
60. Daniel Goodkind, personal communication, Nov. 8, 2004.
61. Nicholas R. Lardy, "United States-China ties: reassessing the economic relationship," testimony presented before the House Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, Oct. 21, 2003; on the Internet at http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/lardy1003.htm.
62. Zhong Wu, "Guangdong keeps foreign trade lead," The Standard, Greater China's Business Newspaper, May 18, 2004.
63. China labor Statistical yearbook 2003, p. 8.
64. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003 Ibid., p. 26.
65. Ministry of Agriculture, China TVE Yearbook Editorial Committee, eds., China Village and Town Enterprise. Yearbook 2003 [in Chinese] (Beijing, China Agriculture Publishing House, 2003), pp. 156, 174.
66. Wage-reporting instructions, 2004;
67. enterprise statistical reporting forms, 2004.
68. Personal communication with NBS officials, Jan. 10, 2005; table 1, this article; China National Bureau of Statistics and China Ministry of Labor, compilers, China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2004 (Beijing, China Statistics Press, 2004), p. 9.
69. Fox and Zhao, "China's labor market reform," pp. 13-14.
70. "Chengzhen jiuye yu shiye. wenti yanjiu - 2000 nian di wu ci quanguo renkou pucha shuju fenxi" ["Research on Urban Employment and Unemployment Problems - Analysis of Year 2000 5th National Census Data"] (Beijing, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, CASS Population and Labor Economics Research Institute, 2003), p. 47.
71. "Shanghai Shi 2003 nian wailai liudong renkou diaocha - shuju shouce" ["Survey of the Floating Population of Shanghai in 2003-Data Handbook"] (Shanghai, Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau, 2004).
72. Shanghai tongji nianjian 2003 [Shanghai Statistical Yearbook 2003] (Beijing, Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau, China Statistics Press, 2003), pp. 62, 98;
73. Shanghai Statistical Yearbook 2004 database.
74. China Labor Statistical Yearbook 2003, p. 8;
75. Shanghai Statistical Yearbook 2003, pp. 78-81;
76. Shanghai Statistical Yearbook 2004 database.
77. For manufacturing productivity trends in the advanced industrial countries, see International Comparisons of Manufacturing Produc tivity and Unit Labor Cost Trends, Revised Data for 2003 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Feb. 25, 2005), on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/prod4.pdf;
78. and International Comparisons of Manufacturing Productivity and Unit Labor Cost Trends, Supplementary Tables (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Feb. 25, 2005), on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/fls/prodsupptabletoc.htm.
79. Comparative Civilian Labor Force Statistics, Ten Countries, 1960-2004 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 13, 2005), Table 6; on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/fls/flslforc.pdf.
80. See Banister, "Manufacturing Employment and Compensation in China," for a discussion of China's domestic market, of factors enhancing and factors inhibiting China's competitiveness, and of the question whether China has an "inexhaustible" supply of labor.
81. Fang Cai, Albert Park, and Yaohui Zhao, "The Chinese labor market," paper presented at the Conference on China's Economic Transition: Origins, Mechanisms, and Consequences, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, November 2004, p. 17.
82. China Village and Town Enterprise Yearbook 2003; data were for 2002.
83. "China, no right to work," The Economist, Sept. 11, 2004, pp. 27-28.