By Zhang Wei, the General Office of DRC

Research Report No.130, 2016 (Total 5013) 2016-9-22

Abstract: China is a populous country with a strong demand for public services and a huge system bolstering government payrolls. The number of government employees is taken as an indicator for judging government size in terms of reviewing the cost of public services, the balance of government spending and the adjustment of the composition of government departments. After the founding of new China, the number of government employees has undergone repeated changes along with the reform of government departments. Since the present government proposed the “three-point decision” on curbing government spending, the growth of the total number of government employees at various government levels has gradually been brought under control to a certain extent, showing a declining growth trend. At present, the number of China’s government employees is not large, far below the average level of developed countries. This paper indicates that in terms of human resource allocation，government payrolls could play the following functions: balancing the relationship between supply and demand of human resources as a “stabilizer”, adjusting the income distribution of human resources as a “shock absorber”, driving the rapid transformation of different human capitals as a “converter”, encouraging the efficient flow of human capitals as an “accelerator” and promoting the sustainable development of human resources as an “incubator”.

Key words: government payrolls, the allocation of human resources, scale, functions