On April 14, 2017, China Institute for Employment Research successfully held 2017 First Quarterly Review of Employment in China at Room 347 of Qiushi Building, Renmin University of China. Peng Yongtao, Deputy Director of Population and Employment Statistics Department, National Bureau of Statistics, Xue Xiaoxiang, Director of Employment Promotion Department, National Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Wu Xingyan, General manager assistant of Suzhou Industrial Park, Zhang Xiaoguang, Director of the Human Resources Research and Development Center of Suzhou Industrial Park, Hao Jianbin, Employment Research Director of Alibaba Group, Zhang Yutian, Senior Vice President of Beijing Zhongzhi Haohuo Technology Co., Ltd, Ge Ling, General manager of the Department of government affairs of 58.com, Wang Yixin, Public Relations Supervisor of Zhilian Zhao Pin, Professor Zeng Xiangquan, Director of China Institute for Employment Research (CIER) and Professor of School of Labor and Human Resources (SLHR), Professor Zhao Zhong, Deputy Dean and Professor of SLHR, Associate Professor Liu Erduo, Associate Professor Tu Yongqian, Associate Professor Liu Xiangbo, Ding Dajian, Researcher of CIER, and other researchers also participated in the meeting. The meeting was hosted by Associate Professor Ge Yuhao, Researcher of CIER and Associate Professor of SLHR.

In the theme report stage, CIER deputy researcher Geng Lin delivered a speech entitled “The Analysis of 2017 First Quarter of Chinese Employment Situation-- based on the data from Zhilian Zhao Pin”. Research showed that, due to the factors, such as the workplace "job-hopping fever" and graduates "spring recruitment period" after the Spring Festival, the CIER index showed a seasonal decline to 1.91, in line with the forecast from the previous quarter. Analyzing data from the same period, the CIER index of the first quarter of 2017 is higher than that during the same period in 2016, indicating that the employment situation is improved over the past year and is in line with the GDP.

For the industries, the CIER index of the Internet and e-commerce sector remained in the first place, but fell from 10.89 in the previous quarter to 9.21 in this quarter. From the fourth quarter of 2016, the CIER index of real estate industry rose significantly. The CIER Index of Energy, Mineral, Extractive, Smelting, Printing, Packaging, Paper and Petroleum, Petrochemical and Chemical Industries still remained low, while the traditional industries, including manufacturing industry had encountered many challenges and pressure. In terms of regions, the CIER index showed a decreasing trend in the eastern, central, western and northeastern regions, and the employment market in northeastern China is under higher pressure. The report predicted that the CIER index in the second quarter is more likely to fall slightly than that in the first quarter. Overall, the employment situation in 2017 has both favorable and unfavorable aspects. The overall judgments and conclusions are it will appear a big probability of stabilization and hold the view of cautious optimism.

Director Zhang Xiaoguang delivered a speech entitled "Report on Human Resources Situation in Suzhou Industrial Park in the First Quarter of 2017”. This report analyzed the human resources index and market data of Suzhou Industrial Park, introduced the characteristics of the park's human resources market and the employment situation of the graduates, and forecasted the human resources of the park in the second quarter of 2017. The enterprises in the region are expected to be more stable. In addition, with the support of big data and cloud computing, it forecasted that labor demand of enterprises in the artificial intelligence industry, cultural and sport education industry, and high-end equipment manufacturing industry would be ranked in the top three.

Vice president Zhang Yutian made a report entitled “the acceleration effect of B2B Sharing Economic on employment”. The report introduced the background and application of B2B Sharing Economy, and it also included flexible employment report on Haohuo platform. The study found that the large companies are more likely to share employment opportunities and to have more flexible employment employees. At the same time, flexible employees, such as self-employment can promote the small and micro business entrepreneurship and employment. In addition, Internet marketing flexible employment becomes a development tendency, and the threshold of flexible employment will be further lowered.

Assistant professor Tu Yongqian followed by Zha Yifan and Li Xinwei, undergraduate students of SLHR, presented a report on “Rural Taobao open ‘new migrant age’” on behalf of the task group. The report described the employment situation of rural migrant workers and the employment difficulties of rural migrant workers and analyzed the differences between online job search and traditional channels. It also suggested that rural Taobao platform new features - village hunting, would open a new era of workers’ job searching.

During a keynote speech and a discussion section, the leaders and experts conducted the extensive and in-depth discussions on the first quarter employment situation and future development trends.

Peng Yongtao, Deputy Director of Population and Employment Statistics Department, National Bureau of Statistics, and Xue Xiaoxiang, Director of Employment Promotion Department, National Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security combined with relevant work, commented and analyzed those above reports.

Wang Yixin, Public Relations Supervisor of Zhilian Zhao Pin summarized some data analysis results of the first quarter employment situation. The overall job competition was not as intense as last year. The most competitive industry was the online-game industry. In addition, the top five cities with high competitive level were Beijing, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Shanghai and Shenyang. Due to the diversification of future development options, most of college students postponed their signing time, and still wanted to sign with state-owned enterprises.

Wu Xingyan, General manager assistant of Suzhou Industrial Park, mainly introduced the Development of Human Resources in Suzhou Industrial Park. Suzhou Industrial Park is about to set up a human resources industrial park. For the sake of eliminating labor-intensive enterprises, the introduction of high-end services, sharing economic and R&D centers, human resources services are expected to be more specialized and agglomerated.

Hao Jianbin, Employment Research Director of Alibaba Group, shared the view of new employment form. According to his comments, technological progress has had a crucial impact on job substitution and creation. The Internet is developing at a rapid pace, meanwhile the proportion of freelancers increases significantly. In addition, with the development of artificial intelligence, many repetitive physical and mental labors might be replaced by artificial intelligence in the near future.

Zhao Jing, data analyst of 58.com, presented the analysis of the mid-low labor market. The current overall mid-low labor market is in a state of short supply, and the gap is still gradually increased. The introduction of robots and artificial intelligence will reduce the number of job opportunities in some operational positions, but also generate job opportunities associated with the sale of artificial intelligence and production.

Finally, Professor Zeng Xiangquan gave a summary of the seminar. Firstly, he believes that the future of China's employment quarterly analysis should pay attention to the quality of employment. In addition to CIER Index, we can explore other indexes, such as structural optimization index and employment quality index. These indexes can help us determine whether the status of the current employment structure is optimized or deteriorated and analyze the impact of wage and working time on employment quality. Secondly, we need to further promote study on the current and future issues, such as the trend of declining employment demand of foreign-funded enterprises, the impact of agricultural competitiveness and the release of rural surplus labor force, the factors and countermeasures of youth's high unemployment rate, the impact of artificial intelligence on the creation and destruction of jobs, and the ability to produce standard policy case studies.