Employment Of Rural-Urban Laborers & Research On Informal Employment

In 2003, more than 98 million rural laborers took up jobs outside their townships, over six times the figure of 15 million in 1990. Throughout the 1990s, the number of fanners working away from their native homes increased rapidly at an annual average of five million. To find jobs in city other than their native homes became a major channel for the transfer of the rural workforce. With the advent of reform in the early 1980s, an entirely new employment model contrary to traditional practice has become increasingly prevalent in Chinese cities, i.e., "informal" employment.This article focuses on studying the conditions of the labor force: the rural-urban migrants. These migrant workers constitute the main body of urban inhabitants coming from other places, and they are largely employed in the informal sector.Informal employment is different from formal employment. Because of its flexibility and the effect of reducing unemployment rate and lightening poverty, informal employment and the theory of informal employment are discussed. Then the article points out that informal employment is the most cost-efficient urban employment for rural-urban migrants and it's also highly efficient, informal employment has made great contributions in the service industry of the city as well.Finally, the article puts forward some steps that should be taken to gradually abolish current discriminatory regulations.