As artificial intelligence rapidly transitions from experimental chatbots to autonomous agents capable of executing complex workflows, governments worldwide are grappling with the impending impact on the labor market. In China, the response is taking the form of a massive, state-directed data-gathering initiative.
The State Council, China’s highest administrative authority, has announced plans to establish a national survey focused specifically on the intersection of AI and employment. The initiative aims to systematically evaluate exactly how artificial intelligence is creating new roles and replacing existing ones across the country’s estimated 750 million-strong workforce.
Monitoring the AI Labor Market Impact
The announcement of the national survey follows a high-level State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Qiang on June 30, 2026. While the official readout of the meeting emphasized the need to “take the initiative in advancing AI” and to accelerate the construction of “ultra-large-scale intelligent computing clusters,” the parallel announcement on employment monitoring reveals Beijing’s deep concern about the societal disruptions AI may cause.
According to reports from Staffing Industry Analysts, the government plans to significantly improve employment monitoring in key provinces, major cities, and leading technology companies. The goal is to move beyond anecdotal evidence and gather hard, empirical data on the displacement and creation of jobs driven by AI adoption.
The State Council’s plan is multifaceted. In addition to tracking job losses, the government intends to study the creation of entirely new job categories spawned by the AI industry. Furthermore, Beijing wants to actively direct the use of AI to make traditional industries more efficient and safer, specifically targeting sectors that currently suffer from chronic labor shortages or expose workers to dangerous conditions.
The initiative also includes a regulatory component aimed at the gig economy. The government will urge platform companies, which employ millions of delivery drivers and gig workers managed by algorithms, to improve algorithm transparency, ensure timely wage payments, and draft new labor regulations tailored to the AI era.
A Staggering Global Context
The scale of the potential disruption is staggering. To understand the context of Beijing’s concern, one needs only look at the projections from the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Future of Jobs Report 2025. The WEF estimates that AI and related technologies will create 170 million new jobs globally while simultaneously displacing 92 million existing roles.
While this represents a net positive of 78 million jobs globally, the transition will be highly disruptive, requiring massive reskilling efforts and potentially causing severe localized unemployment in specific sectors. In China, the impact is already being felt. Recent data indicates that 12 percent of surveyed companies in the tech hub of Hangzhou are actively deploying AI, while in the manufacturing center of Dongguan, an estimated 5 percent of the urban population has already been replaced by industrial robots and automation.
A Divergent Regulatory Approach
China’s approach to AI and employment differs significantly from the regulatory frameworks emerging in the West. The European Union’s AI Act, for example, classifies AI systems used in recruitment and hiring decisions as “high risk,” imposing strict compliance requirements on the software itself. Similarly, local laws in the United States, such as New York City’s Local Law 144, mandate bias audits for automated employment decision tools.
In contrast, China’s plan focuses less on regulating the specific algorithms used by HR departments and more on monitoring the macroeconomic impact of AI on the labor market as a whole.
“China’s move to monitor AI’s labor-market impact could signal a broader shift toward tighter workforce governance globally,” noted Peter Reagan, senior director of the Contingent Workforce Strategies Council at Staffing Industry Analysts. Reagan suggests that this approach may eventually require corporate workforce managers to “evidence stronger oversight of AI-driven labor displacement.”
The “Employment First” Imperative
For Beijing, maintaining high employment levels is not just an economic goal; it is a fundamental pillar of social stability. The rapid advancement of Chinese AI models and the aggressive deployment of autonomous agents pose a unique challenge to this imperative.
By launching a national survey, the State Council is attempting to get ahead of the curve. The data gathered will directly inform future policy decisions. The State Council has already indicated it plans to study the creation of new AI-related jobs, explore how AI can make traditional industries safer and more efficient, and draft updated labor regulations to reflect the new reality of human-AI collaboration.
As the AI revolution accelerates, China’s massive, state-directed effort to quantify and manage the labor market impact will be closely watched by policymakers worldwide. The results of the survey, and the regulations that inevitably follow, will shape how the world’s largest workforce navigates the transition to the agentic AI era.