According to media reports, Zeng Xiangquan, director of China's Employment Research Institute (CIER), claimed that the registered unemployment rate cannot reveal the employment situation in China in an online forum.

Zeng is reported to have said that "there are many ‘hidden’ unemployed workers in China's state-owned companies. Due to the restructuring of the state-owned companies and other factors, China will see a second wave of lay-offs."

Zeng told reporters with Jiemian.com that some media outlets made sensational headlines from the out-of-text quotes mentioned earlier. He added that the analysis on China's current employment situation is reflected in the 2015 Third Quarterly Review of Employment.

The reporters with Jiemian.com found out that a research team led by Zeng completed the 2015 Third Quarterly Review of Employment.

According to the quarterly review, during the economic restructuring, the CIER index of the third quarter went down from 2.03 in Q2 to 1.96 in Q3, indicating a surplus demand in the labor force and the overall tightening in job market.

The quarterly review points out that in 2015, excluding seasonal influence and long-term factors, China sees sluggish job growth, which has a thing to do with lower growth in macro economy.

There is not enough survey data to support the view that "China will see a second wave of lay-offs ", according to Guan Xinping, director of Social Development and Management Institute of Nankai University.

China saw a wave of lay-offs at the end of 1990s. At that time, some state-owned companies were transformed into private ones. Moreover, a great number of workers were laid off, causing a huge impact on people's life.

Guan Xinping said that the current reform of state-owned companies focuses more on improving the operating efficiency and system and the mass lay-offs in state-owned companies at the end of 1990s will not happen again.

Due to the restructuring and upgrading in industries, China has seen increasing unemployment in recent years, said Guan.

The workers laid-off due to the upgrade of traditional manufacturing industry may find job in the service sector and the reduction in labor force in recent years also relieve employment pressure to a certain degree, said Guan. He added that emerging industries such as smart manufacturing and Internet industry have seen rapid growth in recent years and for now, it is still early to say that "China will see a wave of lay-offs".