张军：中国经济放缓 为何失业率却在下降？

【编者按：官方城镇登记失业率，十多年来一直定格在4-4.1％，令人惊讶甚至开始怀疑其真实性。城镇调查失业率准备十数年，但至今尚未成熟，成为宏观调控的正式指标。近年来，很多学者开始研究和估算中国的城镇失业率。

张军教授近日和他的学生运用中国城镇住户调查数据（UHS），估算发现，尽管在2005年中国城镇失业率可能高达10.7％，但在过去十年里逐步走低，到2012年已降至7％。也就是说，2005至2012年期间，城镇人口年平均失业率为8.5％。他们还发现，尽管近年来中国GDP增长有所放缓，就业率确在呈增长趋势。

原文为英文版，发表于Project Syndicate。张军教授授权观察者网首发中文版，观察者网杨晗轶翻译。】

上海对“就业困难人员”给予补贴

自2002年以来，中国经济经历了显著的变化，包括GDP从加速增长降为减速增长。然而，由国家统计局与劳动和社会保障部（现人社部）联合发布的官方城镇失业率数字，一直保持在相当稳定的水平上，约为4-4.1％。

从2010年至今，失业率定格在4.1％上没有浮动，这令人惊讶，甚至让有些人开始质疑其真实性。

国家统计局没有说谎，它只是缺少数据。官方提供的失业率数字，只能反映出政府失业救济金发给了多少登记失业的城镇人口，即“城镇登记失业率”。然而，中国的失业保险零零星星，再就业扶助计划也与发达国家有相当大的差距，难以吸引人们向政府求援。其结果是，国家统计局的失业率数字远远无法准确反映现实。

中国政府开始通过开展城镇失业率调查，来解决这一问题。然而，尽管数据收集已是十年前的事，但城镇调查失业率数字，至今尚未成为宏观调控的正式指标。

既然无法获取令人信服的官方数据，部分经济学家只好采用自己的方法，使用城镇住户调查数据来估算真实失业率。

例如韩军和张俊森，通过对从六省区城镇住户调查数据进行推算，认为2005-2006年中国的失业率在10％左右。冯帅章、胡颖尧和罗伯特·莫菲特利用全国大部分省区城镇住户调查数据，计算出2002-2009年平均失业率为10.9％——这个数字超过了以往所有的估值。

但说到底，这些估值是毕竟是估值。由于人们无法轻易获得城镇住户调查数据，研究人员获得的数据来源不同、年份不同、省份不同。这不但给学术研究造成了相当大的困难，甚至导致估值浮动范围过大，丧失统计意义。

我在复旦大学的两名博士生，徐立恒和张慧慧，和我一起设法取得了大量中国城镇住户调查数据（UHS)：包括四个省区2005-2012年的数据；三个省区2005-2009年的数据；在这七省中，有四省能提供2010-2012年的月度数据。

虽然从技术上来说，我们的样本容量并不大，但这些省区分别代表了沿海、内陆，以及东北地区。所以，经过适当的调整和处理，我们能从中推算不同省市的失业率，进而估算全国真实失业率。

我们发现，中国城镇失业率尽管在2005年时可能高达10.7％，但它很可能在过去十年里逐步走低，到2012年已降至7％。也就是说，2005至2012年期间，城镇人口年平均失业率为8.5％。

这些数据以及我们的其它发现，与官方的城镇登记失业率，在时间序列上毫无关联。但如果不考率时间，在截面意义上看，官方的城市登记失业率与我们实际估算的失业率成正相关关系。

这个发现意味着，在截面意义上来说，官方的城镇登记失业率数据可以作为实际失业率的代理变量。

此外，虽然GDP快速增长为降低失业率做出了贡献——比如2007年的情况就是这样；但即使在2008年全球金融危机开始以后，经济状况遭到重创，失业率仍在继续下降。大多数经济学家会认为，在GDP增长减缓之际，失业率降低与劳动力参与率下滑有关。

但我们在城镇住户调查数据的基础上，通过计算发现，随着退出劳动力市场的人员比例下降，中国劳动参与率其实在2008年以后略有上升。换句话说，尽管近年来中国GDP增长有所放缓，就业率仍呈增长趋势。

在某种程度上，我们能从中国当前的经济结构转型中找到解答。目前，中国的经济增长模式正在由制造业驱动转向服务业主导，而新的经济模式为私有创新提供了动力。而且，城镇住户调查数据显示，从2005年至2012年，经济结构转型确实给服务业部门持续创造了就业机会。

自2009年以来，国有部门和制造业就业没有受到重大打击。城镇住户调查数据显示，在服务业和非国有部门，失业工人寻找新岗位的平均时间比制造业和国有部门短。如果制造业和国有部门开始更大幅度地裁员，城镇失业率必将上升。

这种情况之所以没有发生，在一定程度上是因为从全球金融危机以来，政府为基建投资和房地产开发提供了大规模刺激计划，支撑着这些行业。这样的做法维持了第二产业（尤其是制造业和建筑业）的快速增长，吸收了大量低技术工人。通过仔细研究城镇住户调查数据，我们发现，失业率整体下降，极大程度上是因为受教育程度最低的工人解决了就业问题。

在政策刺激下，基础设施和房地产建设热潮也带动了重工业的扩张，在钢铁、水泥、化工、玻璃等领域，国有企业规模扩大，导致就业率从2005年起加速增长。国家统计局数据显示，在2009年以前，国有部门就业率曾呈现负增长，2009年后转为正增长。

当前，GDP增速放缓、失业率下降的现实表明，中国的劳动生产率正在恶化——这一趋势或将降低中国经济的长期潜在增长率。

既然刺激政策的短期效果无法持续，受政府保护的部门可能很快面临裁员，这会进一步导致失业率上升。政府只有进一步采取干预手段，才能防止出现这种结果；但那意味着维持生产率增长所必需的结构性改革会被推迟。

因此，中国决策者将面临一个艰难的抉择：要么容忍失业率升高，要么面临经济增长率的降低。（翻页请看英文原文）

The Truth about Chinese Unemployment Rates

Since 2002, China’s economy has undergone significant changes, including a shift from acceleration to deceleration of GDP growth. Yet the official urban unemployment rate, jointly issued by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Department of Labor and Social Security, has remained remarkably steady, at around 4-4.1%. Since 2010, it has stood at precisely 4.1%. This is surprising, to say the least – and has led some to ask whether the NBS could be fudging the numbers.

The NBS is not lying; it simply lacks data. The unemployment rate that the NBS provides reflects how many members of the registered urban population have reported to the government to receive unemployment benefits. But, unlike in developed countries, China’s piecemeal unemployment insurance and underdeveloped reemployment programs weaken the incentive for people to seek assistance. As a result, the NBS unemployment figures are far from accurate.

China’s government has moved to remedy this, by carrying out urban unemployment surveys. But, despite having been collected a decade ago, those statistics have yet to be released.

In lieu of convincing official figures, some economists have taken matters into their own hands, using data from the urban household survey (UHS) to estimate the real unemployment rate. Extrapolating from UHS data gathered in six provinces, Jun Han and Junsen Zhang, for example, concluded that, in 2005-2006, Chinese unemployment stood at around 10%. Using UHS data from almost all of China, Feng Shuaizhang, Hu Yingyao, and Robert Moffitt calculated an average urban unemployment rate of 10.9% from 2002 to 2009 – the highest estimate ever produced.

But these estimates are just that – estimates. Because UHS data are not freely available, different people obtain results for different years and provinces from the various sources they could access. This has caused considerable frustration for researchers, and has resulted in estimates with ranges so wide as to be statistically insignificant.

In our own research at Fudan University in Shanghai, my two PhD students, Liheng Xu and Huihui Zhang, and I managed to obtain a reasonably broad supply of official statistics: the 2005-2012 data for four provinces, the 2005-2009 data for three provinces, and monthly data for 2010-2012 for four of these seven provinces. While the sample is technically small, the provinces for which we acquired data represent the coastal, inland, and northeast regions. With the right adjustments and processing, we were able to infer the unemployment rates in different kinds of provinces and municipalities, thereby estimating the real nationwide unemployment rate.

We found that, although China’s urban unemployment rate was probably quite high in 2005, standing at 10.7%, it has most likely dropped over the last decade, reaching 7% in 2012. That puts the annual average for the 2005-2012 period at 8.5%. (These and our other findings correlate with a cross-sectional analysis of the official data, meaning that the data for registered unemployment, subjected to such an analysis, might serve as a proxy for the real unemployment rate.)

Moreover, while rapid GDP growth contributed to falling unemployment in, say, 2007, unemployment continued to decline even after the global financial crisis of 2008 began to weaken economic performance. Most economists would assume that declining unemployment amid falling GDP growth is related to a decline in labor-force participation. But our calculations, based on the UHS data, show that labor-force participation in China actually increased slightly after 2008, as the proportion of workers exiting the labor market decreased. In other words, China’s employment growth has accelerated in recent years, even as GDP growth has slowed.

This can be explained partly by an ongoing structural shift in the Chinese economy, from a manufacturing-driven growth model to a services-led model that empowers private innovators. And, indeed, as UHS data show, this shift led to continuous job creation in the services sector from 2005 to 2012.

What has not happened is significant destruction of jobs in the state sector and manufacturing industries, especially since 2009. As the UHS data suggest, the average time it takes an unemployed worker to find a new job in the services and non-state sectors is shorter than in the manufacturing and state sectors. If the manufacturing and state sectors do begin to lay off more employees, urban unemployment rates are bound to rise.

The reason that hasn’t already happened is that the government has, to some extent, been propping up these sectors since the global financial crisis, by implementing massive stimulus packages focused on investment in infrastructure and real-estate development. This has sustained the rapid growth of the secondary sector (especially manufacturing and construction), which has thus been absorbing large numbers of low-skill workers. In fact, upon closer examination of the UHS data, we found that the least-educated workers largely accounted for the decline in overall unemployment.

This stimulated infrastructure and real-estate construction boom has also led to the expansion of heavy industry, including state-owned steel, cement, chemicals, glass, and other enterprises, causing employment growth to accelerate from 2005 onward. The NBS data show that the employment growth rate in the state sector was negative before 2009, when it turned positive.

The fact that the unemployment rate is declining while GDP growth slows suggests that China’s labor productivity is actually worsening – a trend that is likely to lower China’s long-term potential growth rate. Since the effects of the stimulus obviously cannot last, the sectors that were being propped up will soon begin to shed more workers, causing the unemployment rate to rise. Only further government intervention could prevent this outcome; but that might mean delaying structural reforms that are needed to sustain productivity growth. China’s leaders are thus being confronted with a difficult choice: higher near-term unemployment or slower long-term growth.

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