Unemployment in China offers a new and invaluable insight into the Chinese economy, keenly analyzing the new directions the world's next superpower is now taking.

Successfully bringing together a wide range of research and evidence from leading scholars in the field, this book shows how unemployment is one of the key issues facing the Chinese economy. China's market-oriented economic reform and industrial restructuring, while greatly improving efficiency, have also sharply reduced overstaffing, leading to a large increase in unemployment.

At the same time, further restructuring is predicted as the full impact of the accession to the WTO is felt throughout China. A further problem is that new jobs in China's growth industries are more likely to be secured by younger, better-qualified workers than by older, poorly educated and unskilled workers who have been laid off. This book discusses a wide range of issues related to the growing unemployment problem in China and examines the problems in particular cities, appraises the government response, and assesses the prospects going forward.

Malcolm Warner is Professor and Fellow Emeritus at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and Senior Research Associate at the Judge Institute of Management, Cambridge University.

Grace O.M. Lee is Associate Professor at the Department of Public and Social Administration, City University of Hong Kong.