Estimates Of The Number Of Surplus Labour In China

Since the implementation of the "Reform and Opening Up" policy, the gap between agricultural income and non-farm income made the agricultural labor hope freed from the rural. With the promulgation and implementation of labor transfer policy, a large number of agricultural labor force transferred to non-agricultural industries, and even farmers in the Midwest left their homes to the eastern coastal areas to work to survive. After three decades of development, the number of migrant workers labor has grown by70times, which does not include a plan of household registration migration and change the identities of long-term migration, thus people who stay engaged in agricultural production in rural areas is less and less. All these phenomena caused widespread concern in the relevant policy-makers and scholars. Nevertheless, most people think that there are still a lot of surplus labor in our country. Local governments continue to implement labor transfer policy vigorously and the "Twelfth Five-Year Development Plan" also points out that during the"12th Five-Year" the whole country requires to transfer40million rural surplus labor force. As we all know, how much of the remaining amount of labor is not only an important basis to determine whether the arrival of the "Lewis Turning Point ", but also is an important foundation for China’s development of labor-related policies which related to the strategic layout of upgrading the industrial structure adjustment. China has a vast level of economic development and agricultural production conditions in different regions of the same, therefore, the number of surplus labor in China and its regional differences has important implications for the grasp of the current status of agricultural labor and the development of scientific and practical labor policy.This paper divides the country into five regions and uses empirical analysis methods with the projected output elasticity of labor in the agricultural production function model by utilizing the country’s1,983cities and counties in the panel data from2004to2010, to estimate the number of surplus labor force of the country and different regions and comparison surplus labor situation characteristics and differences in different regions within provinces. The results show that:the equilibrium labor needs of agricultural production decreased year by year, is currently about191.42million people. There are still about52million surplus labor and the surplus labor rate is21%.But there are seven provinces began to appear labor shortage. Specifically, there are less than one million of the surplus labor in North China, which has no surplus labor in the three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Inner Mongolia; eastern coastal areas are still a surplus labor force of20million, slightly less than the agricultural labor force in Hainan. Jiangsu has entered the labor shortage stage since2006and there is a larger gap. The number of surplus labor of the central region is about20million and Hubei Province may have no surplus labor. Northwest Territories’ remaining workforce is less than300million, including the lack of a large number of agricultural labor in Xinjiang Autonomous Region. The number of surplus labor of Southwest region has increased year by year, and is about800million people, while Sichuan Province lacks of agricultural labor occasionally, and the surplus labor of Guangxi Province is from inadequate to remaining in the past two years.Based on the empirical analysis, firstly we need to continue to promote the transfer of labor, especially guide the flow of labor force in the province and promote nearby employment; secondly different parts of different provinces need to develop the industrial development planning and labor policies with their own situation.