The Pulse
China Sets 18 Tasks to Cushion AI’s Impact on Jobs
China’s State Council General Office issued guidelines on October 23 outlining 18 tasks to promote employment as artificial intelligence advances. The measures call for new AI-related jobs, worker training, stronger labor protections and as
AI.info Team · Written with AI · fact-checked ·
China’s State Council General Office issued guidelines on October 23 that ask authorities to reduce job displacement linked to artificial intelligence while encouraging AI-related hiring and entrepreneurship. The plan sets out 18 tasks across six areas, including worker training, employment services, labor protections and monitoring employment risks.
The guidance presents AI adoption as both a source of new jobs and a risk to existing work. It calls for expanding opportunities in emerging fields, helping small businesses maintain and increase employment, developing new AI-related occupations and finding ways to create jobs in traditional industries.
18 tasks span jobs, training and worker protections
The guidelines seek to make AI deployment more compatible with employment, rather than treating job losses as an issue to address only after they occur. They call for an assessment mechanism for employment risks associated with AI adoption and urge measures to mitigate displacement caused by AI applications.
Worker protections form another part of the package. The document calls for strengthening rights in human-machine collaboration, improving social security for people in flexible and new forms of employment, and adjusting income-distribution mechanisms to account for advances in AI. The public summary does not set out penalties, deadlines or numerical limits on AI use.
Beijing pairs adoption with new hiring
The employment push is not framed as a restraint on AI deployment alone. The guidelines also encourage new forms of AI-sector employment and entrepreneurship, and call for businesses to use the technology in traditional sectors in ways that support job creation. They identify digital skills and improved employment services as part of the response.
That approach follows a public announcement earlier in October by Li Zhong, vice minister of human resources and social security, who said China would address the employment effects of AI and other emerging technologies. The October 23 release turns that broad aim into a government work program, while leaving the implementation details to the relevant authorities.
Job figures show the scale of the policy challenge
Data cited by the government earlier this month show the labor market at once absorbing new workers and adapting to technology. New AI-related job postings on recruitment platform Maimai rose 789.47 percent year over year from January through July, according to the October 10 report. The report did not say that this increase represents net job creation across the economy.
China created 10.52 million urban jobs in the first nine months of 2026, reaching 87.7 percent of its annual target, the same report said. The surveyed urban unemployment rate averaged 5.2 percent in the first eight months. Those figures provide context for the government’s emphasis on employment, but they do not measure how many jobs AI has displaced.
The guidance favors managed adoption over a cap
The October 23 announcement describes a balancing act: expand AI-related work and applications, while assessing potential employment effects and strengthening support for affected workers. Its summary does not announce a cap on AI deployment or a requirement for employers to preserve specific positions. Instead, it directs attention to risk assessment, skills, employment services and social protection.
That distinction matters. The plan identifies the areas where authorities want action, but the public English-language release does not specify how employment risks will be measured or how the proposed protections will be enforced. Its clearest commitment is to build employment-risk assessment into the government response to AI adoption.