China to streamline its employment structure

China will maintain overall employment stability, create fuller employment opportunities and ensure a fairer employment environment during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), according to a new plan released by the State Council, China's cabinet, on Wednesday.

The plan for implementing an employment-first strategy over five years also calls for further optimizing the employment structure, achieving more efficient job-person matching, fostering more harmonious labor relations, and making new progress in high-quality and full employment.

It stresses the need to address the principal contradiction of supply-demand mismatches in the human resources market. It emphasizes implementing the employment-first strategy, tackling structural employment mismatches, deepening institutional reforms in employment, and preventing large-scale unemployment risks.

The plan calls for synergy between macro policies and employment, implementing actions to stabilize and expand employment, and adapting to the development of artificial intelligence to support employment and entrepreneurship.

It urges strengthening coordination between industry and employment, stabilizing the scale of employment in labor-intensive industries, expanding employment capacity in the service sector, and tapping the employment potential of emerging sectors.

Meanwhile, it stresses improving the alignment between educational supply and talent demand, and carrying out vocational skills training on a large scale.

The plan also requires expanding channels for college graduates and other young people to secure employment and achieve career success. Increasing support for key groups, including rural migrant workers and veterans, are needed, while strengthening employment assistance for people with difficulties in finding jobs and registered unemployed individuals should be in place.

It further demands promoting the healthy development of flexible employment and new forms of employment. Efforts are to be made to improve the employment and entrepreneurship service systems.

The plan also seeks to strengthen the protection of workers' rights and interests, and promote employment monitoring, early warning and risk response.

All regions and departments should treat employment as a top priority for people's livelihoods, adopt systematic approaches, and effectively implement the plan's tasks in light of local conditions, the plan said.

In 2025, China created 12.67 million new urban jobs nationwide, with the average urban surveyed unemployment rate standing at 5.2 percent, below the annual target of around 5.5 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

For 2026, the Government Work Report has set the employment targets at over 12 million new urban jobs and an urban surveyed unemployment rate of around 5.5 percent. In the first five months of 2026, the average urban surveyed unemployment rate stood at 5.2 percent, official data showed.

Tang Daisheng, a professor at Beijing Jiaotong University's School of Economics and Management, said the most notable highlight of the 15th Five-Year Plan is its elevation of the employment strategy from "employment first" to "high quality and full employment". This shift, he noted, marks a fundamental change in development philosophy, from focusing on whether there is a job to whether the job is good, moving from sheer quantity growth to quality improvement and structural optimization.

The establishment of a coordinated mechanism between investing in physical capital and investing in people means employment policies no longer operate in isolation but are deeply embedded in macrocontrol, industrial development, and technological innovation, he added.

Regarding artificial intelligence, Tang said the plan proactively addresses technological change by scaling up vocational skills training to help workers master new capabilities and adapt to new roles.

This forward-looking approach, he said, demonstrates the Party's ability to navigate complex situations and seize opportunities, while guiding workers to find their footing and realize their value amid the technological wave.

zoushuo@chinadaily.com.cn