Labor Market in the PRC

Current changes in the regional pattern of industrial growth are mainly due to the PRC's policy implementations.

Fang Cai, a professor and director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, presented a paper on Industrial and Labor Relocations among Chinese Regions at the conference on Labor Market in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and its Adjustment to Global Financial Crisis on 18–19 June in Tokyo. Mr. Cai noted that when the global financial crisis hit the economy of the PRC, a large number of migrant workers returned from the coastal regions to their homes in rural areas, and the engine of economic growth shifted from the east to the central and west regions. However, Cai and his colleagues found that the current changes in the regional pattern of industrial growth are mainly due to the central government's policy implementations, which favored investment in the central and western regions. Cai suggested that government intervention should be more comparative advantage-following, which would facilitate a domestic flying-geese pattern to make industrial relocation beneficial to all regions.

Read a more detailed summary of this event.