經濟學家表示中國勞動力人口已經見頂

China’s labour force is shrinking and the “migrant miracle” that powered its industrial rise is mostly exhausted, removing the key drivers of the country’s meteoric growth, according to leading economists.

一些著名經濟學家表示，中國的勞動力隊伍正在萎縮，驅動工業騰飛的“移民奇蹟”幾近枯竭，這使中國失去了推動經濟飛速發展的關鍵驅動力。

The transformation will lead to slower growth, reduced investment and a loss of competitiveness, increasing the urgency of reforms to fuel new sources of expansion, they warn.

他們警告稱，這一轉變將導致增長放緩、投資減少和競爭力的損失，使實施改革以發掘新的增長源變得更爲緊迫。

Today the Financial Times begins a series on the end of the miracle — the three decades of rapid growth fuelled by unprecedented migration of labour from the unproductive farm sector to work in factories and construction.

30年來，推動中國飛速發展的，是從生產力低下的農業部門轉移到工廠和建設工地、規模前所未有的勞動力遷徙。FT中文網近期將發表一系列關於中國勞動力遷徙潮及其起伏興衰之趨勢的報道。

Consensus has emerged that China has reached the point at which the once-inexhaustible pool of surplus rural labour dries up and wages rise rapidly.

經濟學家們形成的共識是，中國已經到達一個拐點，曾經取之不盡的農村富餘勞動力正慢慢乾涸，工資水平迅速上升。

“Now we are at the so-called Lewis inflection point,” said Ha Jiming, chief investment strategist for private wealth management at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong. “The working-age share of China’s Population peaks this year at 72 per cent, then it will start to fall even more rapidly than what we saw in Japan in the 1990s.”

“我們現在正處於所謂的劉易斯拐點，”高盛(Goldman Sachs)香港私人財富管理首席投資策略師哈繼銘說，“今年中國工齡人口在總人口中的比例達到了72%的峯值，此後這一比例將加快下降，降速比上世紀90年代的日本還要快。”

Cai Fang, director of the Institute of Population and Labour Economics, estimates China’s potential gross domestic product growth will fall to 6.1 per cent from 2016-20.

人口與勞動經濟研究所所長蔡昉估計，中國的潛在國內生產總值(GDP)增長率將在2016到2020年間跌至6.1%。

Since Deng Xiaoping launched market reforms in 1978, 278m migrant workers from rural villages have moved to the cities. But the process is now mostly complete. Mr Cai said: “From 2005 to 2010, the growth rate of migrant workers was 4 per cent. Last year it was only 1.3 per cent. Maybe this year it will contract.”

自1978年鄧小平推出市場改革後，已有2.78億農民工從農村遷移到城市。但這一進程現在已經幾近完成。蔡昉說：“從2005年到2010年，農民工人數的增長率是4%。去年這一增長率僅爲1.3%。今年這個數字可能出現縮減。”