In the meeting of Central Politburo of the Communist Party of China held in July 2018, "stable employment" was listed as the priority of the "six stabilities" that needed to be done well. This shows that steady employment is the bottom line to maintain social stability. According to the statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, in November 2018, the national urban unemployment rate fell slightly from 4.9% in October to 4.8%, while the urban unemployment rate in 31 major cities was 4.7%. Although the official unemployment rate statistics show relative stability, concerns about the employment situation have begun to emerge as growth momentum slows down and a large number of business deteriorates.

Recently, the news of the mandatory termination of Mindray Medical, a leading medical equipment company in China, has aroused widespread concern. It is reported that the Mindray Medical's recruiting groups in various universities have been disbanded, and more than 200 fresh graduates who had previously received the employment offers were forced to cancel the contract. Most of the cancelled employments were for research and development, a few marketing positions, and many are postgraduate research students. According to the incomplete statistics of the students in the groups, the number of students whose contracts were terminated accounts for more than 250, in Xi'an alone the termination ratio reached more than 60%, while Guangdong-Shenzhen's termination ratio was over 57%. The huge R&D and M&A investment have made Mindray Medical one of the largest companies in the Chinese medical equipment sector. Yet, from the perspective of capacity and sales, it has already reached the peak of its staged growth. Mindray Medical, which has long claimed to plan to replace imported equipment, is not optimistic in the global market. Dubbed as Huawei in the medical sector", Mindray Medical is a Chinese company that focuses on research and development and is listed in the U.S. earlier. The large-scale breach of contract, though with internal reasons for the company, reflects the hardship faced by the Chinese enterprises has spread to some better companies. This is not an isolated case and it will bring a lot of pressure to the Chinese job market in 2019.

The employment pressure has already appeared in other industries in China. Looking at the more familiar cyber world, 2019 commences with layoffs. Among these, rumors of Meituan's layoffs are the loudest. In the middle and late December of 2018, the news of Meituan's layoffs was already circulating on the internet. The employees of the relevant departments were exchanging news with each other; some said that the content department would lay off 300 people, and some said that the meal ordering technology department's layoff would reach 50%. And Mobike, which has just been acquired by Meituan, is unable to escape the fate of layoffs. On December 23, 2018, Hu Weiwei, the founder and CEO of Mobike resigned, and the next day came to the news of the layoff. Mobike will optimize the department personnel with overlapping business with Meituan, such as marketing, finance, technology, and others; the overall layoff ratio is between 20% and 30%; another employee said, "first the ride-hailing department will see the layoff, then it will be Mobike's turn; after it is almost done the ride-hailing and Mobike will be combined."

In addition to Meituan and other internet companies like Zhihu, there are layoff rumors of many others companies, these include some top internet companies like the BATJ (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, & JD.com). Some applicants said that Alibaba has completely reduced the staffing, and all business lines cease to approve recruitment notices. Some netizens broke the news that JD.com will lay off employees and stop the social recruitment, which "basically decided that the JD Mall will cut 10% of the employees, the financial sector 20%"; Meitu beauty business has stopped operating, while Hangzhou's e-commerce teams are almost completely gone; as the result of the collapse of the capital chain, there might only 40% of the personnel of Smartisan left in the end. Douyu streaming site will lay off more than 70 staff; the relevant employees will be laid off verbally without any prior notice. The hardest hit area in the internet field is internet finance, which can almost be regarded as the layoff in the whole industry: some leading mutual funds company are collectively laying off the employees; Credit Ease will cut one-third of employees at the end of the month; 80% of the Qudian trainees have left in a single day, and the number of layoffs was up to 200.

Relative to this visible information on layoffs, the more serious thing may be some invisible unemployment. On January 2, the statistics released by the People's Daily show that nearly half of the companies in the daily service sector faced recruitment difficulties after entering December. The vacancies increased by 22%-27%, among which the recruitment and catering services face the most difficulty in recruitment. According to a person in charge of a decoration company, the number of customers who renovated this year was nearly double of the previous year, and the staff is definitely not insufficient, especially for woodworking, bricklayers, oilers and other technical jobs. More than a month after the recruitment, the manpower does not only increase, instead the number of staff has decreased. Xiao Xiaolai, a courier delivery staff who delivered over 50 parcels a day also intends to return home two weeks in advance, where he pointed out that "it's too tired to do the job for a year. I will go home early for the New Year, and plan to find a job in my hometown in the future." His decision is largely because of pressures from family and the increasingly high living cost in the first-tier city. According to the "China Mobile Population Development Report," (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") issued by the National Health and Family Planning Commission, under the current urban policy tightening, the tide of population turnover is back. The floating population will be concentrated in those over 45 years old, accounting for 22.8% of the 245 million floating population in 2017. According to the report, based on a survey, the returning population is mainly 40-50 years old and 20-30 years old; over 70% of the returning population are reluctant to move to other places again. The employment rate of these populations is difficult to count.

In addition, the employment situation in China's manufacturing industry is not optimistic. Some surveys have shown that the situation of some manufacturing enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta is facing more and more difficulties. This aspect is related to the downward pressure on the Chinese economy and the sluggish domestic demand. On the other hand, due to the impact of U.S.-China trade war, more export-oriented enterprises are becoming harder to operate, and many are on the verge of bankruptcy, which will have a greater impact on the future job market. The withdrawal of a large number of foreign-funded enterprises has also aggravated the seriousness of the employment situation in China. Affected by the trade war, more foreign companies have chosen to relocate from China since 2018. The departure of foreign capital has a direct impact on the employment of hundreds of millions of ordinary people. According to statistics, in 2016, foreign-funded enterprises (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) employed 26.66 million people. Yet, according to official estimation, foreign-invested companies absorb more than 45 million direct jobs. The continuous withdrawal of foreign capital may affect the livelihood of this huge employment group.

Final analysis conclusion:

The difficult situation faced by Chinese enterprises has spread to some better companies. This is not an isolated case; it will put a lot of pressure on the Chinese job market in 2019.