中國經濟放緩 突顯就業不平衡

HONG KONG —Wang Junping worked as a farmer in his native Hebei Province and as a coal miner in Inner Mongolia. But on a recent afternoon, Mr. Wang, 49, smartly dressed in a suit jacket, was awaiting lessons at an employment agency on the proper way to use a broom and mop to clean Beijing’s sprawling subway system.

香港——王君平曾在河北老家當過農民，也在內蒙古幹過礦工。但在最近的一個下午，49歲的他穿着體面的西裝，在一個職業介紹所等待上課，他將學習如何使用掃帚和拖把來清潔北京龐大的地鐵系統。

A high school graduate, Mr. Wang quit his job at a mine last year after his pay was cut in half. Still, he decided against the cleaning job because the salary was too low, at around $320 a month.

去年，高中畢業的王君平在工資減半後辭去了礦場的工作。不過，因爲工資實在太低——月薪大約爲320美元（約合2000元人民幣）——他決定不當清潔工。

“Beijing is the capital city and the window for cultural and political exchange,” Mr. Wang said. “I believed it would be easy to find jobs. But actually it’s not that easy.”

“北京是首都，是文化和政治交流的窗口，”王君平說。“我以爲找工作會很容易。但其實沒那麼容易。”

China has a job market mismatch.

中國的就業市場存在技能與需求不匹配的現象。

Agriculture jobs have been declining for years, the result of urbanization and the country’s continuing economic transformation. And China’s huge manufacturing sector is showing new signs of stress, as some companies struggle with rising debt and rampant overcapacity.

數年來，由於城市化和中國持續的經濟改革，農業領域的工作一直在減少。此外，中國龐大的製造業也表現出了新的壓力跡象，有些企業在債務增加和產能極度過剩的情況下苦苦掙扎。

China’s services business, which includes industries like logistics, retail, information technology and sanitation, is booming, driving job creation across the entire economy. Around 300 million people now work in services in China, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the world’s largest work force.

包括物流、零售、信息技術和環境衛生等行業在內的中國服務業正在蓬勃發展，推動了整個經濟體中就業機會的創造。目前共有大約3億人在中國的服務領域工作，在世界上最大的勞動力大軍中佔將近40%。

But workers are not easily making the switch. Unskilled or semiskilled workers like Mr. Wang can be a bit choosier now as growth of the pool of migrant workers slows. At the same time, soaring university enrollment means new graduates often struggle to find the high-paying white-collar jobs they were expecting.

但是，工人適應這種轉變並不容易。目前，隨着外來務工人員數量的增速變緩，像王君平這種沒有技能或技能不足的人可以更挑剔一些。與此同時，大學入學人數的飆升意味着應屆畢業生往往難以找到他們所期望的高薪白領工作。

The job market — and its lopsided pockets of supply and demand — presents a critical test for policy makers. For more than a decade, China’s urban work force swelled and incomes rose in the double digits, matching or exceeding the heady economic growth rates in those years.

就業市場及其供需失衡現象給決策者帶來了嚴峻考驗。十年多來，中國的城市勞動力人口大量增加，收入呈兩位數增長，與這些年飛速的經濟增長相匹配或超過了經濟增長率。

Now, the nation’s economic outlook is slowing. Gross domestic product rose 7 percent in the first quarter, which represents the slowest quarterly growth since early 2009.

如今，中國經濟的增長勢頭正在減弱。第一季度的國內生產總值增長了7%，這是自2009年初以來經濟增速最慢的一個季度。

“We’re in this weird position where the Communist Party leadership seems completely comfortable with the idea that every year G.D.P. growth, wage growth — everything in the economy — is going to be growing a little bit more slowly,” said Andy Rothman, an investment strategist at Matthews Asia in San Francisco.

舊金山銘基亞洲(Matthews Asia)的投資策略師安迪·羅思曼(Andy Rothman)表示，“我們處在一個奇怪的位置，共產黨領導層似乎滿不介意經濟中的方方面面，包括每年的GDP增長率和工資增長率，都將以越來越慢的速度增長。”

The leadership in Beijing has repeatedly signaled that slower growth is acceptable as long as the job market holds up. While China has moved in recent months to support the economy, cutting interest rates twice and freeing banks to lend more twice, some analysts say a still-sound job market is the reason it has not adopted a more aggressive approach.

北京的領導層曾反覆表示，只要就業市場形勢穩定，增長放緩是可以接受的。儘管最近幾個月，中國採取了一些扶持經濟的措施——兩次降息、兩次放鬆銀行借貸限制——一些分析人士稱，仍然穩定的就業市場是政府還沒有采取更加激進的措施的原因。

“The Chinese are literally doing the least amount necessary in order to just maintain an air of stability,” said Leland Miller, president of China Beige Book International, which conducts surveys of thousands of businesses across the country. “It’s the opposite of what’s happening in Japan — shock and awe — or in Europe.”

“其實，爲了維護穩定氛圍，中國只採取了最基本的必要舉措，”中國褐皮書國際公司(China Beige Book International)總裁勒蘭德·米勒(Leland Miller)說。該公司對全國各地的數千家企業進行了調查。“這與日本或歐洲大刀闊斧的情況正好相反。”

China’s premier, Li Keqiang, recently sought to play down the importance of the G.D.P. growth target, saying instead that he preferred to focus on whether the economy was expanding in a way that created new jobs. And so far, it appears to be doing that. China added 13.2 million new urban jobs last year, surpassing Mr. Li’s official target of 10 million such jobs.

最近，中國國務院總理李克強試圖淡化GDP增長目標的重要性，表示他更願意關注經濟是否在以創造新就業機會的方式增長。目前爲止，它似乎是在這樣做着。去年，中國城鎮新增就業崗位1320萬個，超出了李克強所設定的1000萬的官方目標。

But Mr. Li’s jobs target is a gross figure. It does not factor in jobs that were eliminated. And more important, income growth is decelerating, down from double digits to around 8 percent last year. Any resulting pullback in consumer spending would have a direct impact on the service sector’s ability to continue to create jobs.

不過，李克強的就業目標是個總數，並不包括被淘汰的工作崗位。更重要的是，收入的增長勢頭正在放緩，從兩位數下降到了去年的8%左右。隨之而來的任何消費支出的減少，都將對服務業繼續創造就業機會的能力造成直接影響。

“If people including migrant workers were used to salary increases of 15 to 20 percent every year, and all of a sudden they are down to 10 or even 8 percent, how will they respond?” said Jurgen F. Conrad, head of the China economics unit at the Asian Development Bank in Beijing.

北京亞洲開發銀行(Asian Development Bank)中國經濟部門的負責人尤爾根·F·康拉德(Jurgen F. Conrad)說，“如果包括外來務工人員在內的人們已經習慣了工資每年增加15%到20%，然後這個比率突然降到了10%乃至8%，他們會作何反應？”

“Risks is not the right term, but there are some imponderables,” Mr. Conrad added. “If you look at the magnitude of the structural changes going on, it’s not always easy to predict the outcomes, including for employment.”

“風險並非正確的說法，但這裏有一些無法估量的東西，”康拉德補充道。“如果看看正在發生的結構變化的幅度，就知道預測結局並不總是件容易的事，包括對就業也是如此。”

Data on China’s job market lack the frequency and general quality of figures in more developed markets. For example, the official urban unemployment rate, published quarterly, has ranged from 4 to 4.3 percent for the last decade, a level of stability that economists say is hard to achieve

關於中國就業市場的數據，缺乏更發達市場的數據的那種頻度和普遍質量。例如，過去10年，按季度發佈的官方城鎮失業率的範圍在4%到4.3%。經濟學家表示，這種穩定程度很難實現。

Instead, shifts in the health of the job market tend to show up more clearly in wage and recruiting trends. Here, two overarching factors have emerged in recent years: The pool of migrant workers is tightening as the returns from urbanization diminish, while a shortage of white-collar jobs for new college graduates points to a skills mismatch.

於是，就業市場狀態的好壞往往在工資和招聘趨勢方面表現得更加清晰。近年來，這裏出現了兩個非常重要的因素：由於城市化的回報降低，外來務工人員的人數也在縮減，而一些應屆大學畢業生找不到白領工作的現象也表明了技能與需求的不匹配。

“It is difficult to hire workers, even if the economy is not doing that well,” said Juble Lu, a manager at the Zhihua Kitchen Cabinet Accessories Factory in the southern city of Guangzhou.

中國南方城市廣州的志華櫥櫃有限公司的經理朱布·盧(Juble Lu)說，“即使經濟形勢欠佳，工人也很難僱。”

Factories like Ms. Lu’s rely largely on China’s migrant work force of 175 million. But this pool of laborers is growing today at about only 1 percent a year, much slower than the broader economy. That tighter market tends to give bargaining power to workers and push up wages. For skilled workers, Ms. Lu said, wages could rise by as much as 20 percent a year. “Workers still have their many demands,” she said.

像這樣的工廠，在很大程度上都依賴中國1.75億的外來務工人員。但是，勞力大軍的總人數如今在以每年大約只有1%的速度增加，比整體經濟慢了許多。這種收緊的市場往往會賦予工人議價的權力並擡升工資。朱布·盧說，對於熟練工人，工資每年的漲幅可達20%。她說，“工人們仍然有許多要求。”

The tighter migrant labor pool is symptomatic of the broader growth slowdown. For more than a decade, China has been able to increase the size of its economy by several percentage points a year simply by people moving from farms to factories, where their productivity in economic terms soared. Today, that trend is slowing as the economic returns from urbanization become relatively smaller.

外來務工人員的減少，表明了經濟增速的進一步放緩。十多年來，在中國經濟規模的增長中，每年都有幾個百分點的推動力純粹來自人們從農田到工廠的轉移；在這裏，他們的經濟生產力出現飆升。現在，由於城市化所帶來的經濟收益相對減少，這個趨勢也在放緩。

“A lot of the migration that is going to happen has already happened, and the people left in rural population who are not part of the migrant labor pool are either too young or too old, or have other barriers keeping them from migrating,” said Andrew Batson, the China research director at Gavekal Dragonomics, based in Beijing.

設在北京的龍洲經訊(GaveKal Dragonomics)的研究員白安儒(Andrew Batson)說，“有可能發生的人口遷移中大部分已經發生了，其他不屬於外來務工人員的農村人口，年紀要麼太小要麼太大，或者還有其他因素不讓他們遷移。”

Income trends are further suppressing potential migration to the cities. In recent years, rural incomes have been rising faster than urban ones. “You can’t make the same on the farm as in the city, but at the margin things are getting better,” Mr. Batson said. “What you have to pay them to leave the homestead is rising.”

收入趨勢正在進一步抑制人口向城市的遷移。近年來，農民收入的增長快於城市。“農村掙的錢雖然比不上城市，但從差距來看，情況正在好轉，”白安儒說。“爲了讓他們離開家園，你必須付出更高的代價。”

Contrast this with the situation at the other end of the job market. Having prevailed in the country’s ultracompetitive entrance examinations, new university graduates, usually from one-child families, have high expectations as they seek their first jobs.

把它和就業市場上另一端的情況做個對比。由於在中國競爭格外激烈的大學入學考試中取得勝利，通常來自獨生子女家庭的應屆大學畢業生在尋找第一份工作時，往往有着很高的期待。

But the realities of the market quickly set in. At nearly seven million a year, China today produces twice as many university graduates as it did 10 years ago. The supply appears to be outpacing the demand from prospective employers. According to official data, about 88 jobs requiring graduate-level education are available for every 100 such job seekers. For those with only vocational high school qualifications, the ratio climbs to 104 jobs for every 100 candidates.

但是，市場的現實很快便開始顯現。如今，中國每年會新增近700萬名大學畢業生，幾乎是10年前的兩倍。這個人數似乎超過了市場的相關潛在需求。根據官方數據，對於每100個尋找要求大學畢業水平的工作的人，只有88個這樣的就業機會。而對於那些只有職業高中資格的人，比例則會升至每100人享有104個就業機會。

“The reality is that a taxi driver in Beijing, unskilled, can make more money than a new university graduate,” at least initially, said Mr. Conrad of the Asian Development Bank. “This is of course shocking for these young people.”

“現實情況就是，北京一個沒有任何技能的出租車司機比應屆大學畢業生掙的錢都多，”至少剛開始是這樣。亞洲開發銀行的康拉德說。“對於這些年輕人，這個事實當然令人震驚。”

China’s new graduates have traditionally shied away from working in factories, seeing this as a sign of lower status. But, perhaps because of the slowdown, there are signs this is changing. Dai Chaoyang, general manager of Shanghai Kadun Power Tools, says his company, which manufactures power drills, has started hiring new graduates in management trainee positions.

中國的應屆畢業生一直迴避在工廠工作，認爲這是地位低下的象徵。不過，或許因爲經濟增速放緩，有跡象表明情況正在改變。製造電鑽的上海卡頓電動工具公司的總經理戴朝陽（音）說，他的公司現在已經開始爲管理培訓生崗位招聘應屆大學畢業生了。

“They do not mind working in a factory environment,” Mr. Dai said, “as long as they are not working on the assembly line.”

“他們不介意在工廠工作，”戴朝陽說，“只要不讓他們在流水線上工作就好。”