Industrial Upgrade, Vocational Ability and Migrant Worker Education and Training

Training School of Zhejiang Radio & Television University, Hangzhou 310012, China

1 Introduction

Improvement of population quality largely depends on education, and human capital is a decisive factor for labor transfer[1]. Migrant workers are mainstay of modernization construction, and their personal quality not only concerns their survival and development, but also concerns upgrade of modern industrial structure, construction of new socialist countryside, and solution of issues concerning agriculture, farmers and rural areas. Therefore, str-engthening education and training of migrant workers is of great significance for social development.

In order to strengthen training of migrant workers, both central government and State Council of China have taken a series of measures and local government also actively issued and implemented corresponding policies and regulations.The12thFive-YearPlanandOutlineforMediumandLongTermEducationalReformandDevelopmentPlanoftheStateclearlystated that it is required to strengthen education and training of migrant workers and make effort to build study-oriented society and lifelong education system. In February, 2014, premier Li Keqiang specially held a standing meeting of State Council, deployed accelerating developing modern vocational education, and stated that developing vocational education is a strategic measure for promoting mode transformation, structure adjustment, people’s livelihood improvement. Government at all levels should improve financial input mechanism, formulate and implement vocational school running standard in a classified way, and strengthen monitoring and evaluation, to make vocational education create talent dividend constantly for the country and society. These measures play a great role in promoting education and training of migrant workers. Besides, in some economically developed areas of the eastern China, although they are still major regions absorbing migrant workers, they are faced with tremendous pressure of economic structural adjustment and industrial upgrade, and it is urgent to improve personnel quality. When migrant workers are brought under double pressure of employment and vocational development ability, their willingness to participate in education and training will become higher. Therefore, study of migrant worker education and training from the perspective of industrial structure and their dual demands will be of great realistic significance.

2 Mechanism of industrial upgrade, vocational ability and migrant worker education and training

Since the 20th century, global industrial structure has been changing rapidly, and constantly improving industrial structural optimization and upgrade have become important path for countries raising their international competitive power, and industrial structural adjustment becomes theme of economic development. In the world, the overall trend of industrial structure changes in some developed countries is decline of primary and secondary industries in gross national product (GNP), and rise of tertiary industry. Since the reform and opening-up, changes in industrial structure of China are basically similar to developed countries, but there are also stage characteristics of developing countries. The percentage of primary industry in GNP gradually declines, the percentage of secondary industry is basically stable, while the percentage of tertiary industry constantly rises.

Changes in industrial structure bring about changes in employment structure. Product structure and market demands with different industry types objectively require production element types and element combination method suitable for respective industry development, as well as allocation modes and types of production means. Since labor element is an essential production factor, its demands and allocation modes will determine employment structural mode of the region. Therefore, the phenomenon of employment structure always closely connecting with corresponding industrial structure is likely to happen in a particular area.

In traditional labor intensive industries, capital size and technology content required in production process are relatively low, production types are generally living necessities, and corresponding market demand levels are not high. Generally, simple labor element can satisfy demands of industrial structure, thus corresponding employment structure is labor intensive employment structure.

By contrast, in capital intensive industries, it needs more capital input and human capital type labor element input, and products have high technology content. In the opinion of Wang Xiaolu, human capital quality and technological innovation are main inputs necessary for optimization and upgrade of industrial upgrade[2]. Optimization and upgrade of labor intensive industries need higher quality of human capital. Therefore, upgrade, adjustment and changes of industrial structure will lead to break of original element combination mode, labor employment structure will also change, and it will become an essential macro factor for changes of labor employment structure.

In market economy, factors influencing adjustment of product and industrial structure mainly come from internal pushing force and external pulling force. Internal pushing force is mainly efficiency of element output, such as capital, labor, and land output efficiency, changes in element allocation and combination modes. The internal pushing force will push evolution of products and industrial structure, especially in current economic new normal, distortion of element price will influence play of element efficiency and it is necessary to make certain transformation. Therefore, changes in industrial structure influenced by changes in element efficiency can be called efficiency-driving mode. External pulling force mainly comes from demands of external market, including product market and element market. Changes in market demands will bring about changes in industrial structure. Such changes in industrial structure can be called demand pulling mode.

In the efficiency driving industrial structure mode, human capital is an essential factor for changes. As a core element of modern economic growth, human capital has output effect of marginal income growth, and it will influence allocation effect of other resource elements, accordingly it will directly drive evolution of labor element structure and transformation of employment mode. In demand pulling type industrial structure mode, human capital plays a pulling role. The investment of human capital is a type of demand consumption, including investment in education, training, medical care, sanitation, health care, and circulation, related traffic and communication, it is combination of investment of these products. When human capital investment increases, it will stimulate investment demands of these products and change existing market supply and demand structure. In addition, human capital investment not only exerts a quantitative effect on development of industrial structure, but also exerts qualitative effect. It can raise market demand level and quality of industry and products, form "demand pulling type" industrial structure mode. Such mode objectively pulls changes in market demand structure of labor elements. There is not only changes in quantity, but also improvement in quality.

3 Existing difficulties

3.1Coexistenceof"technicianshortage"and"laborshortage" Currently, China’s economy is undergoing economic structural adjustment and industrial transformation, and new normal of economy is an essential characteristic of current economic development. Original extensive growth mode relying mainly on cheap labor, low cost and high energy consumption is gradually transforming to intensive production mode characterized by capital aggregation, industrial cluster, and technological progress. In the intensive production mode, it lays down higher requirements for labor quality and skills. Insufficient reserve of labor skill, shortage of skill training of original labor is difficult to satisfy demands of new industry for skilled personnel. What’s worse, bankruptcy and migration of some enterprises and return of migrant workers lead to shortage in labor supply, and the labor demands of enterprises fail to be satisfied. Therefore, "technician shortage" and "labor shortage" seriously restrict economic development of China.

3.2WeakdrivingforceofenterprisesinparticipatingintrainingAfter the economy enters new normal, enterprises will face tremendous pressure of industrial transformation and upgrade, some small and medium-sized enterprises are reducing operating costs, pursuing higher profit, and not willing to invest much in vocational skill training of migrant workers in excuse of high flow and lack of stability of migrant workers. Besides, the income spillover frequently occurring in education and training leads to imbalance between investment and income of enterprises in providing vocational training for migrant workers.

3.3LowtrainingqualityThrough participating in education and training, migrant workers can learn some skills and knowledge and improve employment quality and ability. Besides, after receiving education and training, they can increase employment income and even increase their opportunity of promotion. However, some existing migrant worker education and training methods and means are relatively backward, mainly giving teaching with practical teaching and field teaching; theoretical infusion is the main method, but there is little heuristic teaching. Some training contents fail to keep up with industrial upgrade, structural adjustment and market demands. Some training contents become a mere formality, training depth is not sufficient. Although the number of migrant workers receiving education and training is gradually increasing, the overall training quality is not high. As a result, there is no fundamental change in overall employment quality of migrant workers, it is difficult to satisfy demands of new industries for high skilled talents.

3.4ImperfecteducationandtrainingservicesystemMigrant worker education and training is a systematic project. It needs relatively perfect education and training service system, including organization system, institutional guarantee, information service, training content, and training methods. Nevertheless, existing migrant worker educations and trainings are always short, adaptable and fast. It takes a certain period to understand and digest training knowledge. Some needs practice and application. In fact, there is nearly no "after-sales service" after education and training. Some training organizations lose connection with migrant workers after completion of training. The supervision on education and training is not put in place. In consequence, migrant workers are still at a loss what to do in the face of new industries, new processes, and new equipment.

4 Path dependency of industrial upgrade, vocational ability and migrant worker education and training

4.1GovernmentshouldstrengthensupervisiononeducationandtrainingofmigrantworkersImprovement of migrant worker quality is the solution to issues concerning agriculture, farmers and rural areas, and important approach for building new socialist countryside. Government should undertake responsibility of implementing migrant worker education and training. As quasi-public goods, migrant worker education and training should be completed jointly by government, enterprises, training market, and migrant workers. Government, as the leader, should focus on planning of migrant worker education and training, establish coordination mechanism for interested parties, establish training effect evaluation mechanism, build migrant worker education and training demonstration base, and strengthen management of migrant worker training market and inspection and supervision of use of financial support funds. Besides, government can strengthen pre-job adaptation training and job improvement training through entrusted training, appointed training, order training, and joint training, to improve quality of migrant workers.

4.2EnterprisesshouldincreaseinputinmigrantworkereducationandtrainingAccording toVocationalEducationLawofthePeople’sRepublicofChina, an enterprise shall, in light of its actual conditions, provide systematic vocational education and training for its own employees and for the persons to be employed. Adjustment of industrial structure lays down higher requirements for labor quality. More and more enterprises also realize the importance of workers for enterprise development and it is necessary to balance hard quality and soft quality of workers. Hard quality mainly refers to production skills of workers, while soft quality mainly refers to workers’ communication, coordination, and management ability. Inter-disciplinary talent migrant workers with both hard quality and soft quality will make greater contribution to enterprise development. Therefore, many enterprises, especially some large and medium sized enterprises will invest more in training workers, such as internal training and outsourcing training, to better adapt to adjustment and upgrade of industrial structure.

4.3TrainingmarketshouldstrengthenattractionofeducationandtrainingprogramsCurrently, education and training market mainly consists of two parts: one is government specially designated training organizations, and the other is various commercial training organizations. Although most of these training organizations provide many training and education programs, most training programs have little attraction. From the perspective of reform of the supply front, it is recommended to improve supply quality of migrant worker education and training programs, formulate individualized training schemes in accordance with characteristics of migrant workers, to fully stimulate their interest, and make them want to learn and become willing to learn. Besides, education and training organizations may actively cooperate with enterprises or government, establish benign interaction of industrial structure and talent demand information, take industrial upgrade as guide, talent structure as actual demands, develop diversified training resources, and guide migrant workers to learn skills and knowledge consciously and actively. Finally, it is recommended to provide migrant workers with corresponding training qualification certificate according to education and training conditions, so as to satisfy their short-term post demands and point out direction for successful career.

4.4MigrantworkersshouldactivelyparticipateineducationandtrainingMigrant workers participate in education and training is not only a type of self-input, but also a type of self-quality improvement. Besides, it is closely connected with adjustment of industrial structure and solution to issues concerning agriculture, farmers and rural areas. However, most migrant workers lack reasonable plan for vocational development. They are confused about their future career and they lack market competition awareness. Migrant workers should clearly realize that adjustment, transformation and upgrade of industrial structure will inevitably lay down higher requirements for labor quality, impose higher requirements for their skills, and post competition will be gradually deteriorated. Therefore, to obtain better jobs, migrant workers should change their traditional small peasant thought, actively grasp new skills and knowledge required for corresponding work, actively participate in middle and high level skills training programs, so as to promote their development and better integrate into urban areas.

5 Conclusions

The matter of migrant worker education and training is a matter of fundamental importance concerning social development and social stability. The solution to issues concerning agriculture, farmers and rural areas lies in improvement of farmers’ quality. In the system of migrant worker education and training, it involves many aspects and needs concern of the whole society. It is necessary to establish a multi-dimensional interactive education and training system with government as leader and guidance and enterprises, market and farmers well coordinated. Through this system, migrant workers are expected to learn useful skills and knowledge, improve vocational ability and improve their overall quality. The whole society should take active action, practically find out education and training demands of migrant workers, satisfy requirements of migrant workers badly needed, and make efforts to adapt to adjustment of industrial structure and new normal economic development.

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