China’s new labor laws are a step forward. But the country has an economic security problem that rivals the unraveling of the safety net in the United States.

These are among the nuggets that can be gleaned from a new report on China’s future labor market and the impact of new labor laws from the Adecco Institute, a research body affiliated with Swiss-based HR services company Adecco Group.

The 42-page study notes labor challenges facing China, including skill shortages in middle and senior management. The dearth of quality managers in China, and the related dilemma of promoting people too quickly, was central to an extensive Workforce Management report earlier this year.

 The Adecco report also gives positive marks to a new set of labor laws either ratified or under discussion in China. These include China’s new contract labor law. A draft of that law initially alarmed business leaders, but the end result—due to take effect in January—has received a warm reception from a range of observers.

 “Our Adecco Institute perspective is that the final versions of the new laws—given the major shifts in wording during the drafting process—are surprisingly well balanced between protection and flexibility, are generally a good “outcome,” and are an interesting example of China’s increasing openness to look and learn from foreign best practices and then adapt these to China’s circumstances,” the report says.

One of China’s pending labor laws concerns social security. But progress on that measure has slowed, according to the report. And the lack of universal social security benefits to Chinese citizens is a major concern, the report implies. China’s workforce is aging fast. And the current economic safety net is skimpy for many. “Social insurance offers low levels of protection and anyway still only covers a very narrow range of people and excludes much of the rural population, migrants to the cities, and many employed in private enterprise in urban areas (though numbers are increasing),” the report says.

What’s more, the existing social insurance system “serves to restrict the free movement of labor,” the report says, because “people are reluctant to shift from a high level of coverage in public sector enterprises to the private sector.”

Adecco’s report, therefore, is yet another voice noting the importance to business of a smart system of economic security for workers. Debate over that subject has been brewing for the past few years in the United States, as globalization and diminishing employment benefits have shifted risk onto individuals. China, with its fast embrace of capitalism from socialism over the past three decades, has created great wealth but also a good amount of economic insecurity and, according to the Adecco report, the largest gap between rich and poor in Asia. All told, the average Chinese worker probably faces greater odds than his U.S. counterpart of taking a hard economic fall.

Will China end up providing an effective safety net for its workers before the U.S. does?