Flexible employment is a general term for various forms of employment different from traditional mainstream employment, mainly including self employment, part-time employment, temporary employment, part-time employment, remote employment, independent employment, contract employment, etc. At the beginning of reform and opening up, affected by the traditional planned economy system, flexible employment developed slowly, and the employment quality of employees was generally low. There were problems such as unstable posts and incomes, long working hours, high labor intensity, incomplete social security, unsmooth career development, and low social recognition. However, with the continuous development of China's economy and society, the leap forward development of higher education from elite to popular to universal, and the profound impact of Internet information technology on human thinking, production and lifestyle, the connotation and extension of flexible employment has also been greatly expanded. Nowadays, flexible employment has gradually developed from a small-scale and small-scale social phenomenon to an important employment form with large-scale and large-scale existence.

Flexible employment is one of the important ways to solve the problem of coexistence of total employment pressure and structural contradiction in China, especially to help college students obtain employment. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, China's flexible employment has reached about 200 million people, accounting for one seventh of the total population of the country; Statistics from the National University Student Information Consulting and Employment Guidance Center show that there will be about 1.5 million college graduates in flexible employment in 2021, accounting for 16.25% of the total number of college graduates in the country that year. This shows that flexible employment has become a new form and trend of college students' employment choice.

Flexible employment not only effectively alleviates the employment pressure of college students, but also reduces the employment cost of enterprises. It is an important starting point to ensure the steady development of China's employment market. However, with the continuous expansion of flexible employment scale, the continuous expansion of fields and the continuous enrichment of business types, flexible employment of college students also faces many practical challenges. For example, the instability of flexible employment affects the sustainable development of their careers, the imperfect supporting mechanism makes it difficult to guarantee the labor rights and interests of employed college students, and the unclear legal rights and responsibilities of labor relations make the path of protecting the rights of employed college students blocked and long. These have become important factors affecting the quality of flexible employment of college students. The number of college graduates in 2024 is expected to reach 11.79 million, and many college students are bound to enter the labor market in a flexible way. Therefore, the government and universities must further strengthen the regulation and guidance of flexible employment to ensure its orderly, more sustainable and high-quality development.

Adhere to the new direction of flexible employment by vigorously developing new quality productivity. The essence of the new quality productivity is scientific and technological innovation, and the key lies in the revolutionary breakthrough of technology. While the new quality productivity promotes new economic growth, it will inevitably promote industrial innovation with scientific and technological innovation, and then cultivate new industries, new models, new formats, and new drivers with new technologies, which will lead to a large number of new employment patterns. These new forms of employment are mostly related to emerging technologies and future technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum information, blockchain, 5G communication, new energy, new materials, biotechnology, etc., and are characterized by high technology, high efficiency, and high quality. Therefore, in order to give full play to the role of new quality productivity in promoting flexible employment, we should continue to deepen the promotion of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation", increase support for small, medium-sized and micro enterprises, self-employed people, and self-employed people, constantly improve the national unified open market, provide more stable resources and opportunities for flexible employment of college students, and consolidate the solid foundation of "stable employment".

Efforts should be made to promote the connotative development of colleges and universities, and cultivate more new workers who can adapt to the new forms of flexible employment. At present, the integration of science and technology chain and industry chain is deepening, more and more smart factories, unmanned driving is gradually landing, and the phenomenon of "machine replacement" is increasingly common, which puts forward new requirements for the quality and ability of workers. As the convergence point of education, science and technology, and talents, colleges and universities should actively play a leading role, closely focus on innovation as the core point, meet the development needs of new quality productivity, promote the organic connection of education chain, talent chain, industry chain, and innovation chain, accelerate the construction of new talent quality model and curriculum training system, and improve the foresight, adaptability, and coupling of talent supply, Vigorously cultivate strategic talents and skilled application-oriented talents who can create new quality productivity, and constantly improve the core competitiveness of flexible employment of college students.

Continue to strengthen vocational education and training to improve the flexible employability of college students. Vocational education and training is an important link to help college students improve their employment quality and skill level, and enhance their flexible employment adaptability. At present, the flexible employment market for college students shows obvious characteristics of digitalization, instantaneity, intelligence, etc., which requires a large number of human resources with high added value. However, a single employment guidance for colleges and universities has been difficult to meet the needs of flexible employment for college students. Therefore, colleges and universities should further explore and deepen the construction of vocational training courses for college students, explore and innovate the joint employment training mechanism between colleges and enterprises, enhance the effectiveness of vocational training, and help college students obtain employment stability and career development by improving their professional ability.

Actively use a more perfect policy system to provide reliable guarantee for flexible employment of college students. In recent years, China has introduced a series of policies and measures to standardize the development of flexible employment and strengthen flexible employment services. However, because there is no special management department, flexible employment college students generally lack a sense of organizational belonging and security. Therefore, it is necessary to continue to improve the flexible employment service guarantee measures by classification, improve the policy and service support system, improve the inclusiveness and flexibility of employment policies, actively explore and strengthen the construction of flexible employment system, standardize and guide flexible employment, protect the basic rights and interests of college students in employment, and improve their sustainable employability. For example, cancel the household registration restrictions on flexible employment college students, improve the related social insurance system and worker's rights and interests protection system, improve the basic pension and medical insurance security level, promote flexible employment personnel to participate in the pilot housing provident fund system, and include them into the national labor security system and unemployment insurance system.

(Author: Han Xianzhou, a researcher of Capital University of Economics and Business, and a special researcher of Beijing Xi Jinping Research Center for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in a New Era)

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