중국의 노사관계에 대한 연구

Abstract

중국은 개혁․개방을 추진한 결과 1990년대 후반 이후 전세계에서 가장 모범적인 경제성장을 기록하고 있다. 그러나 고용여건이 크게 개선되지 않고 있고, 일부지역에서는 인력부족이 심각하여, 생산직 인력을 구하지 못해 기업경영에 어려움울 겪고 있다. 반면 중국의 실업률은 1990년대 후반 이후 증가하고 있다. 현재의 인구성장의 추세대로라면 중국은 지금부터 향후 10년 동안 가장 풍부한 노동력 공급을 맞게 될 것이나, 도․농 간 인구비중을 추이를 볼 때 선진산업국가로 발전하기 위해서는 농촌인구의 도시 유입이 보다 필요할 것으로 예상된다. 중국은 호구제도로 인하여 시장에 의존하는 노동력의 자유로운 이동이 상당부분 제한되어 노동시장에서의 효율적인 자원배치가 이루어지지 않는 편이다. 인력의 지역적 이동을 제한하는 호구제도의 개선은 쉽지 않지만 일부지역의 경우 2005년도에 호구제도를 대폭 개정하여 인력이 지역적으로 효율적으로 배분될 수 있는 인프라가 정비되고 있다. 그러나 2008년 1월부터 발효된 노동계약법은 기업에는 노동비용의 추가 상승을 초래하고 노무관리의 부담을 증가시키는 요인이 될 것으로 전망된다. 노사관계는 생산관계의 일부분으로서 그 형식과 발전은 생산력 발전 수준의 영향을 받아 결정된다. 전통적인 계획경제에서 시장경제로 전환하는 과정에서 중국의 정치경제 환경, 사회․문화적 환경 그리고 노동시장 환경의 변화에 따라 노사관계 행위주체들의 가치관과 지위가 변화되고 있으며, 노사관계 문제가 대두되기 시작하였다. 비록 아직까지 고도의 경제성장을 이룩하기 위해서는 정치 및 사회의 안정이 우선이라는 인식을 바탕으로 안정기조가 유지되면서 노사관계가 극단적인 대립관계로 표면화되지 않고 있다. 그러나 경제의 글로벌화로 사회가치와 취업의 다양화가 촉진되고, 중장기적으로 노사관계의 변화를 전망하면, 첫째, 농촌의 노동력이 도시의 공업과 서비스업에 상당한 정도로 흡수되어 장기적으로 노동시장에서 무제한적인 노동공급이 제한적으로 될 것이다. 둘째, 중국이 내수시장을 개방함에 따라 기업의 규모가 확대될 것이다. 이러한 노사관계 환경의 변화는 외자기업의 공회 설립을 촉진하게 될 것이다. 이와 같은 환경변화는 다양한 이익주체들의 갈등요인인 잠재되어 있기 때문에 앞으로 노사관계 문제가 중국의 중요한 정책과제가 예측된다. 인사제도의 개혁, 공회 성격의 조정, 교육과 훈련의 강화 등이 정책대안이 될 것이다.|China has been making alarming economic development along with switching socialistic planned economic system to market economic system. In the course of economic growth, China`s industrial relations have been changing rapidly due to the new socio-economic problems such as widening income and development gaps among brackets and regions, and shake-up dismissal. The greater part of Chinese firms used to be state-owned due to the characteristics of socialistic planned economy. But the established state-owned or society-owned structures have been changing to multi-owned structures in the course of reforming and opening, and market-economic industrial relations are newly taking shape. China had the merit of labor market such as cheap wage and controlled labor right up to 2004. After then labor force came to be short in the industrialized districts along the east and south coasts, and the local governments raised minimum wages restrained for a long time, which resulted in an upward trend of wage. China has been experiencing greate changes in the industrial relations and the labor market environment especially after the enforcement of new labor contract law in 2008. The characteristics and current situations of the labor market and industrial relations in China are as follows: First, urban areas of China have the structure of labor market that labor supply is in excess of demand for labor due to increasing numbers of shake-up layoff along with the reformation of public owned firms and capital-intensive reorganization of industry, surplus labor force emigrating from rural areas into urban areas, and rapid increase of college graduates. In spite of the higher rate of economic growth, the unemployment rate is not decreasing, and solving the unemployment problem is the most important task of China. Old systems and practices related to labor market should be reformed, and job education and training should be reinforced in order to promote employment of workers in rural and urban areas. Second, although recently experiencing high rate of economic growth, China has to grapple with serious problem of unemployment caused by overall oversupply of labor, expansion of youth unemployment, surplus workers emigrating from rural areas, shortage of high-techers and skilled workers, and imbalance of regional-industrial employment structure. Especially the shortages of high-techers and skilled workers in manufacturing and service industries are impeding factors to economic development and improvement of industrial structure. Third, the law of labor contract enacted in 2008 provides new stipulations concerning individual labor contract between management and labor, right of organization, collective bargaining and action, and the tripartite commission and other collective industrial relations. The labor contract law has been legislated and put into force for the purpose of promoting the right, interest and welfare of workers by restraining employers from exercising abusively their rights, furthering long-term employment, tightening up the dismissal criteria, regulating the labor detachment, and strengthening the collective bargaining right of trade union. Collective bargaining system, which is an advanced industrial relation mechanism in market economy, has taken an increasing interest. And along with the recent introduction of market-economic system, the interest between labor and management is clearly divided, and the potential conflicts of interests and rights are growing. Fourth, the expansion of business scale due to the opening of Chinese domestic market leads to the environmental changes of the industrial relations. The changes of labor environment have various effects on business such as rise of cost, increasing strain in the industrial relations, and difficulty of hiring manpower. Fifth, the reshuffle of employment structure is being led mainly by private-owned firms. The ratio of workers employed in state-owned and social-owned firms to the total employed is drastically decreasing, whereas the ratio of workers employed in new private-owned firms such as limited liability company, joint-stock company and foreign investment company is continually increasing. Sixth, the ratio of workers employed in the secondary-tertiary industries as a whole in China is becoming higher, yet the ratio of workers employed in the primary industry is still relatively high. The triad agrarian problems (problems of rural community, agriculture, and peasantry caused by small arable land, low productivity of agriculture, urban-rural income gap) and the separation policy of urban-rural areas through the family registration system are raising social disturbance. Announcing that building new socialistic rural community is a major task, the Chinese government is taking all possible steps to exempt agricultural tax, to expand rural infrastructures, and to stabilize prices of agricultural products. National development projects such as the Greate Western Development Project which establish various infrastructures will create new employment by transferring rural workers to non-agricultural industries. Seventh, it is estimated that the labor force of China will not increase any more from the year of 2011 till 2021, and then will absolutely decrease due to low birthrate and population aging. The decreasing growth rate of working population, therefore, will probably lead to the shortage of labor force supply in the future.