China’s structural changes occur in two parallel paces. Profound shifts initiated by political elites take place suddenly, while significant though less dramatic ones percolate upward through the capillaries that connect society, the economy and the state. These two volumes chart the latter in the arena of labour relations. China’s Changing Workplace — something of a mistitle, as it hardly mentions workplace and labour process issues — covers a wide range of labour market and human resource questions. The overall theme is, not surprisingly, the variegated practices in different parts of the country and the different stages of transition from state socialism to a somewhat distinctive if still highly segmented Chinese capitalism. Indeed, the editors have the temerity to ask just when ‘transition’ gives way to a sustainable new form of political economy, which they believe to be taking root in some parts of the country. An opening section contains chapters that provide useful overviews and contexts on labour markets and human management practices, business systems, and legislation and institutions. That is followed by five chapters on labour markets that underscore a number of important new developments that are often overlooked. China still possesses what Marx called large ‘latent’ reserve armies of unskilled or semi-skilled industrial labour, both in the countryside and among urban school-leavers, ‘stagnant’ reserves of long-term unemployed and unemployable laid-off workers in rustbelt zones, and ‘floating’ pools of underemployed looking for work. The government speaks often and urgently of its need to maintain at least 7 per cent annual economic growth in order to avert a social and political crisis sparked by unemployment. Yet China’s Changing Workplace looks closely at the other side of this labour market dialectic: the often severe shortage of skilled labour. China is often hailed, and rightfully so, for its highly educated and literate labour force; indeed, many observers credit educational gains going back even to the Maoist era for the success of the post-Maoist economy. Yet China’s Changing Workplace takes the country to task for an irrational system that places too much emphasis on general education and too little on focused technical and vocational training fine-tuned to the needs of local labour markets. This leaves employers holding the bag for training their own workforces, a bs_bs_banner