Job Mobility in Post-Mao Cities: Increases on the Margins

Abstract

From the mid-1950s right through the late 1970s jobs in urban China were largely treated as a welfare benefit; life-time employment was the norm and there was neither a buyer's market nor a seller's market for labour. In the state sector hiring was done on the basis of annual quotas established by national level ministries which in turn allocated openings to subordinate offices and factories within each bureaucratic chain of command. For those entering the labour force for the first time, job seeking was defined as “waiting for an assignment” (dai ye) and placement was usually handled within secondary schools by classroom teachers. For those already employed by a state unit, moving to a new employer was a “transfer” (ordiao dong) and required appeals to at least two supervisory levels within the firm, and then approval from the administrative supervisors for both new and old employers. For CCP members there were additional sanctioning bodies in the Party hierarchy.