Five provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across China have issued their 2016 guidelines on wage increases, heralding a smaller wage increase this year as most wage growth rates fall.
近日，全国已有五个省市区发布了2016年的工资指导线，且工资增长率多为下调，这预示着今年工资增幅将放缓。
As of July, municipal governments in Beijing, Tianjin and the provincial governments in Shandong, Shanxi and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region have laid out suggested wage increase levels for enterprises.
截至7月，北京、天津、山东、山西和内蒙古五个省市区的地方政府公布了企业工资的建议增长水平。
Guidelines on wage increases, introduced in 1997 in China, can be divided into three levels: average suggested wage increase, maximum suggested wage increase and minimum suggested wage increase.
关于工资增长的指导线，是在1997年引入中国的，可分为三个层次：工资增长预警线、工资增长基准线和工资增长下线。

Data shows the average suggested wage increase of the five regions all dropped to below 10%, with Shanxi recording the biggest decline of 3%.
数据显示，这五个地区的工资指导基准线均降至10%以下，其中，山西降幅最大，达3%。
Su Hainan, vice president of the China Association for Labor Studies, said as China's economy faces downward pressure, the growth of wages should be in accordance with economic growth.
中国劳动学会副会长苏海南表示，由于我国经济面临下行压力，工资增长跟经济增速也要相适应。
The guidelines are usually released in the first half of the year. Guidelines on wage increases are "based on a region's GDP, price rising level, labor productivity and overall wage level of last year", Su says, adding that it is not compulsory for an employer to increase wages according to the guidelines.
该指导线通常于每年的上半年发布。苏海南称，工资指导线是根据地区生产总值、物价上涨水平、劳动生产率和上一年度的工资总体水平得出的。他补充说道，雇主并非必须按照工资指导线涨薪。
"If maximum suggested wage increase sets too high, employers will feel hard to pay labor cost, impairing their competitiveness in the market. If minimum suggested wage increase is low, employee' life will be affected by the rising goods prices", Su said.
苏海南表示：“如果工资增长预警线太高，那么雇主会觉得很难支付劳动成本。如果工资增长下线太低，那么职工的生活将会受到物价上涨的影响。”