In the end of June, the number of employees in the country’s urban units continued to increase year-on-year, but at a slightly slowed growth rate compared with the first quarter. In the first half of the year, the total labor payment and the average labor payment in urban units both enjoyed considerably fast growth, which was, to some extent, slowed compared with that of the first quarter.

Employees in urban units continued to increase

In the end of June, the number of employees in the country’s urban units was 110.303 million, 1.344 million more than that in the same period of last year but 0.129 million less than the increase of 1.473 million in the first quarter.

Following are characteristics of changes in employees in urban units in the first half of the year:

 The newly hired employees mainly concentrated in the East coastal area. Geographically, East region saw a year-on-year increase of 1.629 million employees in urban units, most obvious among regions; West region made an increase of 0.093 million; while Middle region decrease of 0.378 million. In East region, ZheJiang, Guangdong and FuJian enjoyed considerably large increases. While in Middle region, Heilongjiang, AnHui, Inner Mongolia and JiLin experienced considerably large decreases.

Employees in units other than state-owned and collective-owned ones continued to increase. In the end of June, the number of employees in state-owned units was 66.388 million, 1.688 million less than  the same period of last year; in collective-owned units 8.671 million, 1.038 million less; while in other units 35.244 million, 4.07 million more.

The manufacturing sector witnessed the largest increase of employment while the wholesale and retail trade sector saw the largest decrease. Among sectors, the manufacturing sector had a year-on-year increase of 0.616 million employees, the most of all sectors; while the public administration and the education sectors saw increases of 0.294 million and 0.286 million respectively. The wholesale and retail trade sector had a year-on-year decrease of 0.436 million, most of all sectors. The farming, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery sector and the transportation, storage and postal services sector had decreases of 0.220 million employees and 0.151 million employees respectively.

The growth of labour payment in urban units slowed down

In the first half of the year, the country’s urban units delivered a total labour payment of RMB 889.54 billion Yuan to employees, a year-on-year increase of 14.6% or 0.3 percentage points higher than that in the same period of last year. The average labour payment per employee was RMB 8,040 Yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.2% or 0.9 percentage point lower than that in the same period of last year. The total labour payment in the second quarter gained a year-on-year increase of 12.8% and the average labour payment had a year-on-year increase of 11.6%, 3.6 percentage points and 3.3 percentage points lower than each in the first quarter respectively.

Following are the main characteristics of changes in labour payment of employees:

Gap of average labour payments between regions widened to some extent. In the first half of the year, top five provinces (autonomous regions, metropolitan cities) with highest accumulated average payment were Beijing (RMB 14,973 Yuan), Shanghai (RMB 14,598 Yuan), Tibet (RMB 12,602 Yuan), ZheJiang (RMB 11,448 Yuan) and Guangdong (RMB 11,302 Yuan). While the bottom five ones were HeNan (RMB 5,544 Yuan), HaiNan (RMB 5,831 Yuan), HuBei (RMB 6,106 Yuan), JiangXi (RMB 6,136 Yuan) and ShanXi (RMB 6,139 Yuan). The ratio of the highest average accumulated labour payment to the lowest one among regions reached 1:2.7 from 1:2.6 of the same period last year. 

State-owned units saw the fastest increase in the average accumulated labour payment. In the first half of the year, the average accumulated labour payment in state-owned units was RMB 8,342 Yuan, a year-on-year rise of 13.3%; in collective-owned units RMB 4,675 Yuan, an increase of 11.2%; in other units RMB 8,310 Yuan, up by 11.6%. In the second quarter alone, the average accumulated labour payment in state-owned units increased by 12%, in collective-owned units increased by 9.1% and in other units increased by 9.2%, 2.7, 4.3 and 4.9 percentage points lower than each in the first quarter respectively.

The average accumulated labour payment in the information communication, computer services and software sector maintained the relatively high level; while in wholesale and retail trade sector saw the fastest growth. In state-owned units, the average accumulated labour payment in five sectors exceeded RMB 10,000 Yuan: information communication, computer services and software sector (RMB 12,861 Yuan), financial sector (RMB 12,069 Yuan), scientific research technology services and geological investigation sector (RMB 11,321 Yuan), power, fuel gas and water produce and supply sector (RMB 10,361 Yuan) and culture, sports and recreation sector (RMB 10,141 Yuan). While the five sectors which enjoyed the fastest growth of average accumulated labour payment were: wholesale and retail trade sector (18.3%), financial sector (16.3%), mining sector (15.1%), power, fuel gas and water produce and supply sector (14.1%) and manufacturing sector (13.8%).