Friday, 8 October 2010

Rural earnings in China and the financial crisis

Apologies once again for a lack of recent posts. This management game takes up a lot of my previous blogging time.

It is very interesting to get some figures on the impact of the financial crisis on employment in China. I will be following this up shortly with a link to the current "currency" debate taking place in the national press.

The bottom line is that China is now coming out to explain it's position - something it should have done a while ago (see next post).

The numbers are large and the recovery impressive. 49 million laid off and over 1/2 rehired within a short space of time.

Interesting reading.

The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Off-Farm Employment and Earnings in Rural China

Jikun Huang
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

Huayong Zhi
affiliation not provided to SSRN

Zhurong Huang
affiliation not provided to SSRN

Scott Rozelle
Stanford University - Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies

John Giles
World Bank

October 1, 2010

World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5439

Abstract:
This paper examines the effect of the financial crisis on off-farm employment of China's rural labor force. Using a national representative data set collected from across China, the paper finds that there was a substantial impact. By April 2009 off-farm employment reached 6.8 percent of the rural labor force. Monthly earnings also declined. However, while it is estimated that 49 million were laid-off between October 2008 and April 2009, half of them were re-hired in off-farm work by April 2009. By August 2009, less than 2 percent of the rural labor force was unemployed due to the crisis. The robust recovery appears to have helped avoid instability.

Keywords: Labor Markets, Labor Policies, Work & Working Conditions, Tertiary Education, Crops & Crop Management Systems
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