21SEP

Beijing's AI job plan sets no targets

2 min read

16:45UTC

MOHRSS issued its Action Plan for Adapting to AI Development and Promoting Employment on 15 September, naming three programmes and not one number. Days later it filled a hall with 1,700 employers and 13,000 AI vacancies.

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Key takeaway

China published the policy without targets, then ran the recruitment drive anyway.

China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) issued its Action Plan for Adapting to AI Development and Promoting Employment on 15 September 2026, eight months after saying it intended to⁠¹. Three programmes are named: creating jobs through AI applications, supporting worker transition and redeployment, and drawing employment out of traditional sectors through AI. None carries a numeric target or a deadline.

That is a retreat from how the same ministry worked in April, when it recognised 42 new AI-related occupations and attached a projected headcount of 300,000 to 500,000 workers to each one. The occupational catalogue gave employers, colleges and provincial labour bureaux something countable to build against. The Action Plan that was promised alongside it has arrived with the countable parts removed.

The ministry's hands moved faster than its paperwork. From 14 to 20 September it ran a dedicated AI recruitment track inside its Hundred-Day Ten-Million campaign, drawing more than 1,700 employers including Tencent, Huawei, DeepSeek, ByteDance and SenseTime, and listing over 13,000 AI openings within a four-sector campaign of 178,000⁠². The roles on offer are robotics test engineers, algorithm engineers, chip designers and application developers: the build side of the industry, not the displaced side.

One worker's account runs against the grain of the hall. Fei Zhaojun, a 40-year-old programmer, told Fortune he was laid off with roughly 160 colleagues two weeks after his manager asked whether AI could soon replace human coders⁠³. It is a single account of one unnamed company and it settles nothing about a labour market of this size. A job fair advertising 13,000 openings and a programmer counting 160 departures describe two ends of the same industry, and the ministry's plan sets no number against either.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

China's labour ministry published a plan on 15 September about helping workers adapt to AI, with three named programmes but no numbers attached, no target for how many jobs it expects to create or protect. A few days later, the same ministry ran a week-long AI hiring drive that did produce numbers: more than 1,700 employers and over 13,000 AI job openings between 14 and 20 September. The ministry shows its hand on the concrete hiring event it can point to as evidence of progress, while avoiding, in the policy document itself, a specific numeric promise that would be easy to hold it to later.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Chinese central ministries typically issue directional action plans without numeric targets, then leave the quantified detail to provincial and municipal implementing rules that follow months later. Naming a specific job-creation number in a national plan creates a publicly measurable commitment; leaving it out defers that accountability while still allowing the ministry to claim it acted.

A slowing economy, with 2026 growth guidance already set at its lowest since the 1990s, raises the cost of a missed numeric target and correspondingly raises the incentive to keep this document directional rather than measurable.

Sources:Tencent News·People's Daily

Mentions:China Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security →Tencent Holdings →Huawei →DeepSeek →ByteDance →SenseTime →Fortune →China →Beijing →

First Reported In

Update #20 · AI closes the hiring door, not the exit

Tencent News· 21 Sept 2026

Read original →

Different Perspectives

Korea's four largest banks, as reported by News1

KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana and Woori rehired 1,013 retirees last year, equal to 79.1% of their graduate intake, according to News1. Graduates face a smaller entry intake while returners take fixed-term credit-screening roles at lower pay, News1 reports.

High Court of Justice of Madrid

The court's employment chamber ruled in judgment 864/2026, dated 8 October and made public in early November, that introducing AI is not on its own a ground for dismissal. Employers must prove AI's effect through the four causes the Workers' Statute already lists.

Singapore Ministry of Manpower

The Singapore Ministry of Manpower put third-quarter retrenchments at 4,800, concentrated in information and communications, financial services and manufacturing, with business reorganisation the main driver. Its release does not mention AI.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas

Challenger reported on 5 November that market and economic conditions overtook AI as the leading stated reason for 2026's US job cuts, at 130,531 against 121,401. AI was cited for 1,265 cuts in October, its lowest month of the year.

Office for Budget Responsibility

The OBR's 28 October outlook showed output per worker in information and communication growing 7.6% a year, yet kept AI's boost to UK productivity at 0.2 percentage points a year. It does not attribute the faster growth to AI.

Central Bank of Ireland

Governor Gabriel Makhlouf said on 2 November that AI investment has supported Irish activity and flagged the debt financing behind it as a financial-stability risk. On jobs, he named skills bottlenecks and mismatches, not job losses.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.