China targets unemployment within 5.5% through 2030

China’s human resources and social security development plan for the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) aims to create a considerable scale of urban jobs and keep the surveyed urban unemployment rate within 5.5 per cent, setting labour-market priorities relevant to manufacturers and sourcing teams operating in China.Under the plan, China targets reemployment support for 25 million unemployed urban workers and employment assistance for 6.5 million people who have difficulty finding work. It also called for more than 50 million subsidised vocational training opportunities, including 17.5 million training participations among rural migrant workers.

The plan, released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, sets seven major goals and 18 quantified indicators, and a ministry official said employment would be kept generally stable, with progress towards high-quality and sufficient employment.

China aims to keep surveyed urban unemployment within 5.5 per cent in 2026-2030, signalling labour stability for sourcing teams in China.
The plan targets reemployment for 25 million urban workers and over 50 million subsidised training opportunities, including rural migrant workers.
Measures also cover social security expansion, skills certification, minimum wage mechanisms and AI-enabled job creations.

For social security, the plan aims to keep basic old-age insurance coverage above 95 per cent. It targets 255 million participants in unemployment insurance and 345 million in work-related injury insurance, including occupational injury protection, while enterprise annuity funds or occupational pension funds are expected to exceed 9 trillion yuan (~$1.32 trillion).

It also targets professional qualification certificates for 14 million people, annual recruitment of 35,000 postdoctoral researchers and 40 million person-times in vocational skills certification, including 14 million person-times at or above senior worker level.

It outlines measures on high-quality full employment, salary and income distribution, labour relations, artificial intelligence-enabled employment creation, occupational injury protection trials, minimum wage adjustment mechanisms and a unified national social insurance public service platform.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk