China's manufacturing employment and compensation costs: 2002-06

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 132, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 30-38

  Lett, Erin ^a   Banister, Judith ^b  

^a BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS   (United States)

^b U S CENSUS BUREAU   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 69949143876     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (20)

1. "Top Trading Partners-Surplus, Deficit, Total Trade" (U.S. Census Bureau, Foreign Trade Division, January 2009), on the Internet at www.census.gov/foreign-trade/top (visited Mar. 17, 2009).
2. The currency denoted by the dollar sign ($) is U.S. dollars. For the original detailed report on 2002 manufacturing employment and labor compensation, see Judith Banister, "Manufacturing Employment and Compensation in China," on the Internet at www.bls.gov/ilc/chinareport.pdf (visited Mar. 17, 2009), or the following two Monthly Labor Review articles based on that report: Judith Banister, "Manufacturing employment in China," Monthly Labor Review, July 2005, pp. 11-29, on the Internet at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/07/art2full. pdf (visited Mar. 17, 2009)
3. Judith Banister, "Manufacturing earnings and compensation in China," Monthly Labor Review, August 2005, pp. 22-40, on the Internet at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/08/art3full.pdf (visited Mar. 17, 2009). These works were updated through 2004 in Erin Lett and Judith Banis- ter, "Labor costs of manufacturing employees in China: an update to 2003-04," Monthly Labor Review, November 2006, pp. 40-45, on the Internet at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2006/11/art4full.pdf (visited Mar. 17, 2009).
4. For a discussion of TVEs, see Banister, "Manufacturing Employment and Compensation in China."
5. The partial, incomplete data in table 1 under "Reported manufacturing employment" show the rising trend from 1978 to 1990. Subsequent manufacturing employment trends are derived from the nearly complete series for 1990-2006 under "Manufacturing employment, Urban units plus TVEs."
6. World Trade Organization, "Trade Profiles: China," on the Internet at stat. wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?Language=E&Country =CN (visited Mar. 17, 2009).
7. Banister, "Manufacturing employment in China."
8. For the original estimates of hourly compensation costs and a detailed explanation of the methods used, see Banister, "Manufacturing earnings and compensation in China." For the data on hourly compensation costs, updated to 2003-04, see Lett and Banister, "Labor costs of manufacturing employees in China."
9. See Banister, "Manufacturing earnings and compensation in China," for a more detailed explanation of the limitations of published data from China
10. See Banister, "Manufacturing earnings and compensation in China," for more information about these sources
11. "International comparisons of hourly compensation costs in manufacturing, 2006" (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Jan. 25, 2008), on the Internet at www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ichcc.pdf (visited Mar. 17, 2009).
12. All estimates of compensation costs and the associated percent changes in this article are calculated with the use of nominal currency-that is, current dollars or current yuan
13. People's Bank of China, "Public Announcement of the People's Bank of China on Reforming the RMB Exchange Rate Regime," July 21, 2005, on the Internet at www.pbc.gov.cn/english//detail.asp?col=6400&ID=542 (visited Mar. 17, 2009).
14. People's Bank of China, "Public Announcement of the People's Bank of China on Enlarging the Floating Band of the RMB Trading Prices against the U.S. Dollar in the Inter-bank Spot Foreign Exchange Market," May 18, 2007, on the Internet at www.pbc.gov.cn/english//detail.asp?col=6400&ID=837 (visited Mar. 17, 2009).
15. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, "Foreign Exchange Rates (Annual)," Jan. 2, 2008, on the Internet at www.federalreserve.gov/ releases/g5a (visited Mar. 17, 2009).
16. China's National Bureau of Statistics published Economic Census self- employed and household data only for "industry," which includes mining and quarrying; manufacturing; and the production and distribution of electricity, gas, and water. A "manufacturing-only" employment estimate was obtained by multiplying the ratio of self-employed and household manufacturing employ- ment to self-employed and household industry employment for 2003 from the Yearbook of Industry and Commerce by industry employment from the Economic Census.
17. Note that the status of the self-employed and family businesses in the an- nual data (that is, to what extent they are included) is unclear
18. The analysis in this section of the article is from Judith Banister, "Manufacturing in China Today: Employment and Labor Compensation," The Conference Board Economics Program Working Paper Series EPWP #07-01, 2007, on the Internet at www.conference-board.org/economics/workingpapers.cfm (visited Mar. 17, 2009).
19. The estimate of U.S. hourly compensation costs, $28.98 in 2004, does not include the unincorporated self-employed or unpaid family workers. No data are available to determine what percentage of "self-employed and household employment" from China's Economic Census these two groups constitute. To present some idea of the maximum size of the effect these two groups may have, the comparable figure for the 80.81 million enterprise employees in Chinese manufacturing was 6.87 yuan, or $0.83, about 2.9 percent of U.S. compensation costs in 2004.