On the afternoon of May 27, the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee held its 14th collective study session focused on promoting high-quality and full employment. While presiding over the session, General Secretary Xi Jinping underscored that promoting high-quality, full employment is the new orientation and mission for a new journey of employment work in the new era. It is essential to adhere to a people-centered development philosophy, fully implement policies that encourage self-employment, market-regulated employment, government-facilitated employment, and entrepreneurship. This will continuously enhance the quality and quantity of employment, thereby increasing the sense of gain, happiness, and security among the workforce. Such efforts will provide robust support for comprehensively promoting the building of a strong nation and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese-style modernization.

Mo Rong, Director of the Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security, delivered a presentation on the issue, offering recommendations for work to be undertaken. Members of the Politburo listened attentively to the presentation and engaged in discussion.

Xi delivered an important speech after listening to the explanation and discussion. He pointed out that employment is the most fundamental aspect of people’s livelihood, directly affecting the interests of the people, the healthy development of the economy and society, and the long-term stability of the country. Since the 18th Party Congress, the Party Central Committee has consistently prioritized employment in its governance, strengthened employment-first policies, improved mechanisms for employment promotion, and effectively responded to various pressures and challenges. This has resulted in an average annual urban job creation of 13 million, significantly supporting livelihood improvement and economic development. Through practice, valuable experiences have been gained, including: considering employment as the foundation of people’s livelihood; implementing an employment-first strategy; promoting employment through development; combining employment expansion with quality improvement; prioritizing employment for key groups; encouraging entrepreneurship to drive employment; creating a fair employment environment; and building harmonious labor relations. These experiences are precious and should be upheld and continuously enriched.

Xi stressed the need to unwaveringly implement the new development philosophy, more consciously prioritize high-quality and full employment as a key goal of economic and social development, and make the process of high-quality development one that enhances and expands employment. It is important to develop new productive forces suitable to local conditions, upgrade traditional industries, cultivate and strengthen emerging industries, and plan for future industries to build a modern industrial system and create more high-quality jobs. Industries and enterprises with strong employment capacity should be supported to stabilize and expand employment. New business forms and models should be vigorously developed in line with new economic and social trends and the public’s expectations for a high-quality life, actively exploring and cultivating new occupational sequences and employment growth points. The impact of major policies, projects, and productivity layouts on employment should be evaluated, promoting coordinated efforts between fiscal, monetary, investment, consumption, industrial, and regional policies with employment policies to form an employment-friendly development mode.

Xi highlighted the importance of accelerating the development of a modern human resources system that is high in quality, ample in quantity, structurally optimized, and reasonably distributed to address structural employment conflicts. Adapting to the new wave of technological and industrial changes, it is crucial to scientifically assess human resources development trends, integrate education, training, and employment, dynamically adjust the structure and distribution of higher education resources, and vigorously develop vocational education to establish a lifelong vocational skills training system. Matching supply and demand mechanisms should be improved to achieve optimal job-person fit, maximize talents’ potential, and thereby improve employment quality and stability. Promoting the correct view of employment throughout society and guiding new employment concepts will open up new avenues for employment. It is essential to analyze reasons for labor shortages in some industries and solve the issue of mismatched job availability and job seekers.

Xi emphasized the need to improve support policies for key employment groups. Employment for college graduates and other young groups should be a top priority, with efforts to create more jobs that leverage their skills and knowledge, encourage youth to work in key areas, industries, grassroots urban and rural enterprises, and SMEs, and expand market-based and socialized employment channels. In conjunction with advancing new urbanization and comprehensive rural revitalization, there should be an emphasis on both external employment and local employment. Various measures should be taken to promote employment for migrant workers, guiding talent who have gone abroad to return home, and encouraging urban talent to start businesses in rural areas. It is important to stabilize the employment scale and income of people who have been lifted out of poverty to prevent large-scale return to poverty due to unemployment. Support for older workers, disabled people, and those unemployed for extended periods should be strengthened, public service jobs should be effectively utilized, and there should be no families with zero employment. Employment for veterans, women, and other groups should also be managed effectively.

Xi Jinping pointed out the need to deepen reforms in employment systems and mechanisms. He emphasized improving the public employment service system and enhancing the overall employment public service framework. Additionally, he called for perfecting the entrepreneurial-driven employment guarantee system, optimizing services for entrepreneurship, and improving the quality of entrepreneurship. A unified and standardized human resources market system should be established to create a fair employment environment, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to achieve personal development through hard work.

Xi Jinping pointed out the need to deepen reforms in employment systems and mechanisms. Labor laws and regulations should be improved, benchmarks for new forms of employment should be standardized, the social security system should be perfected, and the legal rights of workers should be safeguarded. The protection of rights for workers in flexible and new employment forms should be strengthened, pilot schemes for occupational injury protection should be expanded, and experiences should be summarized in a timely manner so as to form new systems. Market supervision and labor protection law enforcement should be strengthened to effectively address issues such as employment discrimination, wage arrears, insufficient social security, and illegal layoffs.

Xi Jinping finally pointed out that all levels of Party committees and governments should prioritize employment as a crucial matter of people’s livelihood, strengthen organizational leadership, improve systems and mechanisms, and enhance the synergy in work. Efforts should be accelerated to build a theoretical system for employment in China, effectively enhancing China’s international discourse and influence in the field of employment.