ABSTRACT

This book explores the diversity and dynamism of China’s workplaces and of the wider labour market experiences of its workforce. Drawing on the authors’ extensive recent research, it considers a diverse range of issues and types of workplaces. These changes include: the continuing spread of market-oriented human resource management across public and private sector organisations; greater employment rights for workers; local diversity in regulatory control alongside the governmental priority of a ‘harmonious society’; persistent shortages of skilled labour co-existing with vast underemployment amongst the unskilled; uneven access to education and training across regions; and changes in union behaviour and influence.

Unlike other studies - which tend to assume changes to management, work and employment are relatively uniform across modernising parts of the economy - this book conveys the rich variety among contemporary China’s local labour markets by looking at them, and the institutions that influence them, from the bottom-up. It focuses on other under-explored but emerging phenomena such as family-owned firms, the role of private services businesses, and the emergence of employer associations.

part I|49 pages

Putting change in context

part II|91 pages

Emerging dynamics in labour markets

chapter 4|22 pages

Change and continuity in China's urban workforce

Recent trends

chapter 5|18 pages

Local labour markets

chapter 7|15 pages

Skill shortages

Where labour supply problems meet employee poaching

chapter 8|16 pages

Remaking China's working class

Gongren and nongmingong

part III|77 pages

China's changing workplace