Degree Of Marketization, Government Intervention And Labor Protection

With the constant changing and perfecting of the economic system, and vigorously promoting of market-oriented reform, a type of labor relations of market economy have been gradually developed in our country. The role of market economy in labor relations have enhanced. On the other hand, the government plays an important role in labor relations and labor protection, from excessive government intervention under the planned economic system in the past, to today’s moderate exit and the macroeconomic regulation.Recently, China has introduced a number of labor protection laws and regulations, to perfect labor relations in accordance with the socialist market economy. In order to further clarify the rights and obligations of both parties of labor contract, to protect the lawful rights and interests of workers, to build and develop harmonious and stable labor relations, the Labor Contract Law began to implement in our country on January 1,2008.It is mainly involving the non-fixed term labor contract, improving employee benefits, etc. This is a tendentious law to intensify the protection of laborers. In this article,through selecting the data from 2003 to 2013 of China’s A-share manufacturing listed companies, we empirically analyze the differences of labor protection level in places of different degrees of marketization and the complementary role the government plays to the market. Our studies find that in areas of higher degree of marketization the labor protection level is higher, and in areas of lower degree the level is lower. After the implementation of the Labor Contract Law, the labor protection level of enterprises in areas of low degree of marketization has increased significantly with increasing intervention of government on labor protection. What’s more, the increased amplitude is larger than that of the enterprises in areas of the high degree of marketization. Further empirical examinations showed that the market’s and government’s functions to the labor protection mainly are increasing the difficulty of employee layoffs. The results in this article show that the government plays a complementary role in areas where the market is not perfect, to improve the labor protection level to be consistent. Finally, to better improve the labor protection level of our country, to better play to the synergy between the government intervention and market regulation, this article puts forward some policy suggestions: ①accelerate the process of market-oriented reform,promote the development of labor market, change the weak position of laborers, improve the level of labor protection; ②make reasonable use of government regulation, to makeup for the inadequacy of the market, maintain the normal operation of the market mechanism; ③the government intervention should be given priority from planning and administrative means to economic and legal means, from "excessive" to "moderate intervention".