China issues 18-task plan to limit AI-related job displacement

The guidelines group 18 tasks into six policy areas: AI job creation, employment-friendly adoption, digital skills, employment services, worker protections and employment-risk monitoring.[1] Their stated aim is to use AI to create jobs, improve employment quality and encourage entrepreneurship while reducing AI-related displacement.[1] The job-creation measures include expanding work in emerging AI fields, developing new AI occupations and supporting small and midsize businesses to stabilize or grow employment.[1] The plan also seeks to use AI to create jobs in traditional sectors, while mitigating displacement and assessing the employment risks of adoption.[1]

Businesses are encouraged to notify employees in advance when they may be affected and to support retraining, transfers or efforts to find alternative employment.[2] For AI projects in areas regulated through market access, the guidelines call for employment-risk assessments when implementation could significantly affect jobs.[2] They also urge authorities to take a cautious approach to AI deployment in labour-intensive industries, weighing its scale, intensity and pace.[2] At the same time, the plan prioritizes applications in jobs with labour shortages or hazardous conditions, where AI could improve safety and efficiency.[2]

The guidelines call on universities and vocational institutions to update courses, add AI specialisations and work with businesses on training programmes.[2] Proposed specialized AI training is aimed at graduates, young people, migrant workers and unemployed people.[2] Workers displaced by AI are to receive career guidance, skills training, job recommendations and help starting businesses; eligible unemployed workers should receive unemployment insurance benefits.[2] The plan also proposes using AI to improve job-matching platforms, recruitment services and the delivery of employment benefits.[2]

The guidelines call for protecting workers’ rights to wages, rest, leave and workplace safety, and for regulating AI in human-resource management to address discrimination, fraudulent recruitment and privacy violations caused by algorithm misuse.[2] They propose expanding social-security coverage for people in flexible employment and new forms of work, and adjusting income-distribution mechanisms so workers share in AI-generated economic gains.[2] Authorities are asked to share data and track job creation, displacement and changing skill needs, while bringing AI-related risks into existing unemployment response mechanisms.[2] Official figures put China’s core AI industry above 1.2 trillion yuan in 2025, with more than 6,200 AI companies nationwide.[1]