Interaction Relationship Between Labor Market Intermediaries And Urban Labor Markets At Time And Spacial Dimensions

Because of the continuous economic reform and opening up especially the introduction and deepening of employment system reform, labor markets in China have been gradually established and matured. As important part of the labor markets, various labor market intermediaries have emerged, ranging from nanny services in low-end labor markets to executive search firms looking for high-end talent for large companies. These intermediaries become important labor market players in lubricating the process of workers'employment and employers' recruitment. The growth and development of labor market intermediaries presents a series of challenges to the scholars in China to understand the nature and dynamics. How have labor market intermediaries evolved and developed during the course of China's reform and opening up over the last three decades? What are the mechanisms behind their growth? What roles have the labor market intermediaries play in the formative process of labor markets? How do different types of intermediary agencies survive the increasing level of competition? How their roles are differentiated in shaping employment and recruitment processes in labor markets? At the macro level, above questions are linked to the transformation of Chinese economic and social systems. The dynamics of labor market intermediaries are part of economic and societal transformation in reforming China and represent an important facet of the transition process of the whole reform. At the micro level, the growth and change of labor market intermediaries are closely related to the employment and hence their very livelihood of individual workers, and the labor use and consequently the productivity and efficiency of individual firms in labor markets. It is such social reality and academic thinking that issues of Chinese labor market intermediaries are studied in this thesis.The thesis aims to deepen the understanding of the employment characteristics of workers and the operational characteristics of urban labor markets in China's transformation process by examining the development of labor market intermediaries and the interaction between intermediaries and workers. This general research purpose is achieved through three specific objectives. The first objective is to describe the evolution of labor market intermediaries and explain the mechanisms of labor market intermediary growth in China. The second objective is to describe and explain the interactive relationship between labor market intermediaries and workers in the process of societal transformation and how such relation is unfolded in time and space. The third objective is to assess the effects of labor market intermediaries on workers' employment characteristics and on the operational characteristics of labor markets in China.In order to achieve the above research objectives, a four step approach is adopted. Firstly, I describe the growth and development process of labor market intermediaries since the onset of reform and opening up in China. The focus is to analyze how the state and market have together shaped the growth process and development mechanisms of Chinese labor market intermediaries. Secondly, the effects of labor market intermediaries on the employment of workers in China are assessed at three different levels. The changing relationship between employment characteristics and labor market intermediaries during the course of the reform and opening up is documented at the national scale. According to the inter-regional differences of social and economic development in China, the effects of labor market intermediaries on urban workers are assessed in eastern, central and western regions of China, respectively. The temporal changes and spatial differences of the effects are identified. Thirdly, I conduct a case study of Shanghai to further assess the effects of labor market intermediaries on migrant workers. Fourthly, I describe and explain the behavioral characteristics of a variety of labor market intermediaries from two aspects. Firstly, I mainly describe the operational process of intermediary agencies such as how they compete against each other to obtain customers, and how they provide services and so on. Then, I discuss from the role of institutional and market factors in shaping the growth and change of labor market intermediaries. For example, why different types of labor market intermediaries can coexist in the labor markets in a city? How labor market intermediaries affect and is affected by segmented labor markets? Because economic and social transformations present an overarching background upon which labor market intermediaries emerge and grow in China, the thesis adopted the analytical framework that the state and the market have interactively shaped the development and change of labor markets and labor market intermediaries.Through the study, this thesis draws some important conclusions as following. Firstly, the development of Chinese labor market intermediaries are facilitated by two forces of the state promotion and market demands during the course of the reform and opening up in China. Public employment agencies as part of institutional reforms are established and developed from a top down approach by the government forces, but the growth and prosperity of private employment agencies are mainly the results of development of market economies. Secondly, the development of urban labor market intermediaries is progressive over time in the reform process. The effect of intermediaries on employment characteristics is differentiated among various groups of workers. The number of workers who use labor intermediaries to find a job has gradually increased from initially confined non-public sector workers to all types of employment as time goings on. Contrary to the workers employed through the state employment allocation system, the workers who are employed through labor market intermediaries are always associated with unfavorable labor market outcomes. Thirdly, Across different regions from east to west, the rate using labor market intermediaries decreases gradually. This difference has a close relationship with the development degree of market economy in the three regions. Fouthly, in the process of the employment system reform, the vulnerable groups are always at disadvantage. For example, disadvantaged workers such as women, lower level educational workers, no political people and migrants are firstly negatively affected in the social transformation and employment reform.The important innovation and academic contribution of this thesis is mainly reflected in three aspects. Firstly, this study introduces space to the study of labor market intermediaries and reveals spatial difference on labor market intermediaries utilization rate and their effect in vary regions. Secondly, the paper compares the difference of behavioral characteristics between formal and informal intermediary agencies, initially opens the "black box" of labor market intermediaries. Thirdly, the paper reveals that the vulnerable groups in labor markets are always at a more disadvantageous position in the reform process.The relationship between labor markets and intermediaries is very complex and the numerous research questions remain unanswered in a Chinese context. For instance, how have labor market intermediaries affected on workers' employment and occupational mobility? How have labor market intermediaries affected on the human resources recruitment strategies of various firms in local labor markets? How have labor market intermediaries shaped the operational efficiency of firms and the trajectories of regional and urban labor markets? This study only selects limited aspects of labor markets in China and focuses on the interactive relationship between labor market intermediaries and workers. More studies are needed to expand this fascinating scholarly field of inquiry. Topics such as the relationship between employers and labor market intermediaries are important to understand in the future research.