Discussions on potential bias and implications of Lewis turning point

Thanks to the fast economic growth and quick demographic transition, long-term factors have dominated the Chinese labor market. Therefore, with a short-lived shock in employment due to the global financial crisis, the labor shortage reappeared in the spring of 2010. Taking advantage of the recent aggregated data, this paper predicts the potentials of employment demand in the coming years. Also, the impact of demographic transition is discussed. In addition to quantity shortage, the rising wages for migrant workers characterize the labor market in recent years. Using the national representative data, this paper discusses the trend of labor cost changes when the Chinese economy approaches the Lewis turning point. The implications of large-scale migration to inequality are explored by using 1% population sampling data. This paper also tries to clarify some misunderstandings incurred by misuses of data.