China's State Council guides cautious AI adoption to protect jobs

China's State Council General Office issued an opinion on October 23 on adapting to AI development and building an employment-friendly development model.

It says AI adoption in labor-intensive industries should be cautious and gradual, with scope, intensity and pace managed to minimize the impact on workers. It encourages firms to explore unemployment buffer periods, with advance notice to affected workers and support for transition to new jobs or roles.

Julien Chaumond of Hugging Face says the policy also supports open-source AI communities, projects and research, and encourages AI startups and AI agent applications. The opinion is guidance, and reports do not describe binding enforcement.

A later X post by Rohan Paul says China's economic planner now treats AI's effect on employment as a monitored risk, citing The Information. That report says the October guidelines require risk assessments for AI projects likely to cause major job disruption.