Employment opportunities & investment in Tibet

Recent years have witnessed rapid overall growth in the economy of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). Between 2000 and 2005 the TAR economy doubled and in the same period the GDP value of the construction sector of the economy almost tripled. By contrast the GDP value of agriculture (the sector of the economy in which most Tibetans are employed) grew by only one third. In other words, Tibetans are largely excluded from those sectors of the economy that have seen the most spectacular growth.

The rapid growth of the TAR economy overall has been fuelled by enormous subsidies and subsidised investments, all funded by the Chinese Government. Such subsidies and subsidised investment actually rose to 120% of the economy in 2004-5. Put another way, the government appeared to be spending more in the TAR than the entire amount of economic activity recorded for those years. Such inefficient investment clearly is not ensuring sustainable economic growth and is instead leaving the TAR economy in a position in which it becomes increasingly dependent on central government subsidies. Little of this spending is designed to improve the lives of Tibetans. The most recent Chinese government information, from 2005, indicates that in that year a huge 13% of total investment was spent on government administration whereas only 6% was spent on education and only 1% on health, social welfare and social security.

Such under-investment in education has led to a dire employment situation for Tibetans in the TAR where low levels of literacy has led to low-levels of employment. Education provision in the TAR is the worst of all 31 Chinese provinces, leading to an overall illiteracy rate, according to data from the 2000 Chinese Census, of 48% for Tibetans of 15 years or over. Only 12% of Tibetans have been educated at secondary level or higher. Blighted by such educational disadvantage, Tibetans have an increasingly hard time competing with the ever-growing numbers of Chinese migrants, especially in the urban areas. It is in these areas, which have been targeted for investment and which are growing rapidly, that the opportunities are being created for workers with Chinese language skills, Chinese work cultures and the all important connections to government and business networks.

The explosion of growth and opportunity in Lhasa (where much investment has been targeted) has coincided with Tibetans becoming a minority in their capital city, increasingly marginalised from opportunities to be found there. Once a city of 50-60,000, its population is now 300,000 of which 200,000 are Han Chinese. Consequently Tibetans have been unable to benefit from the growth in tourism-sector jobs which are largely concentrated in Lhasa and which go to the increasing numbers of Chinese migrants with the essential Chinese language skills.

In contrast Tibetans are employed largely in the declining agricultural sector which attracts little investment. To compound their plight, the Chinese government has forced thousands of Tibetans to abandon their traditional nomadic lifestyle.  Nomadic grasslands have been fenced off and enclosed with nomads’ land being confiscated. Forced to abandon their traditional way of life and the skills that maintain that lifestyle, the nomads are forced to resettle in housing colonies where they must borrow money to purchase their houses. This policy is part of China’s attempts to “bring developments” to, and “civilise” Tibet, regardless of the lack of skills possessed by many Tibetans for such a way of life. 

Due to the unique conditions to be found on the Tibetan Plateau, pastoral nomadism historically represented the primary form of agriculture in Tibet. China seeks to replace this mobile and extensive style of agriculture with more intensive practices. Nomads have consequently been settled in urban areas, their pastures fenced off and excluded from areas designated for industrial extraction. Due to the official failure to re-sow degraded areas with native grasses, the productivity of livestock is also threatened.
Read more about nomadic life here