Shanghai Government Intervening in Job Placements

The statistics from the Shanghai migrant population are largely due to poor and unqualified migrants being kept away from civil rights granting them access to basic amenities such as health care, insurance, and education benefits. Though this is widely known, discriminatory polices have led to an even further segregation of the urban and rural force; the Chinese government has passed laws guaranteeing a urban high position job over a rural applicant. While Shanghai businesses usually recruit members of their workforce from their own hometowns and provinces, the government has passed a law stating that companies must hire 15%-30% of urban laborers before beginning the process of looking for migrant workers.

The government has also segregated the working sector, naming three parts: The heavy industries and textiles, the mass consumer goods, and administration, with rising forms of "suitability" within each strata as migrants are guaranteed working in areas of heavy industries and textiles, but only allowed to work in mass consumer goods if the extreme need arises, with no potential to work in administration as the government believes the job to be too "difficult" for them, even going as far to publish a list of 22 jobs forbidden to them (taxi drivers, telephonists, insurance or bank clerks, and etc.)

Even though some migrants have achieved temporary resident statuses, they are still excluded from working in the government, public security, management of joint property, sales positions in state-owned stores, or in cleaning services. Though migrants are more freely able to move with in provinces and cities in order to complete their dreams, they're still hindered by the fact that they can only achieve so high a position before their denied their ambitions, not due to a lack of competence, but discriminatory measures meant to keep the urbanites on top.

Roulleau-Berge, Laurence, and Shi Lu. "Migrant Workers in Shanghai Inequality, Economic Enclaves, and the Various Routes to Employment." China Perspectives (2005). Print.