Globalization and Internal Labor Mobility in China: New Trend and Policy Implications

The phenomenon of the shortage of rural workers is a response of labor market to rapid export growth and economic growth after China became a WTO member. It not only indicates a transition of China’s rural surplus labor forces from unlimited supply to limited surplus, but also highlights the urgent need for an integrated national labor market to solve the structural issue of segregated local labor markets. Industry shift provides an option for China to alleviate the pressure of increasing labor cost on the competitiveness of manufacturing industry. Deepening Hukou system reform and speeding-up the construction of labor market system has very important implications to the mobility and efficiency of China’s labor market.