China's State Council Orders Employment-Risk Assessments for AI Projects in Guidelines on 'Employment-Friendly' AI
The General Office of China's State Council published guidelines on October 23 that set 18 tasks for adapting to AI while protecting jobs. They call for a mechanism to assess the employment risks of AI adoption, monitoring and early warning of AI-driven job losses, and stronger protections for workers alongside machines. The Chinese text says AI projects likely to cause a large employment shock should get a jobs-risk review.
China's State Council wants the job impact of some AI projects assessed before they go ahead. The General Office of the State Council issued the guidelines, document No. 29 of 2026, dated October 16 and published on Friday, October 23.
What the guidelines say
The guidelines set out 18 tasks in six areas: boosting AI's job-creation potential, making AI adoption more employment-friendly, improving workers' digital skills, enhancing employment services, strengthening labour and social-security protections, and monitoring and addressing employment risks, according to the English summary on gov.cn.
They call for mitigating "job displacement caused by AI applications" and establishing "a mechanism to assess employment risks associated with AI adoption." The Chinese text says AI application projects in market-access areas that could cause a large employment shock should undergo an employment-risk assessment during project review; the translation is ours. They also call for monitoring and early warning of AI-related employment risks and more research into AI's effect on jobs.
On workers' rights, the guidelines call for improving protections "in human-machine collaboration," strengthening social security for people in flexible and new forms of employment, and adjusting income distribution.
The context
Official figures put China's core AI industry at more than 1.2 trillion yuan in 2025, with more than 6,200 AI companies, according to the gov.cn summary.
Limits
- The guidelines set direction for ministries and provinces; they do not say who runs the risk assessments, what thresholds apply or when the measures start.
- We read the official Chinese text and the English summary on gov.cn; English renderings of the Chinese text are ours.
- The guidelines were published on October 23, three days before this article; we are covering them now because we missed them at the time.