1. Human resources are subjective resources or dynamic resources. Subjectivity or initiative is the primary feature of human resources, and it is also the most fundamental difference from all other resources. Subjectivity means that human resources play a leading role in economic activities. All economic activities are human activities first, and only human activities can trigger, control and drive the activities of other resources. In addition, human resources are the only creative factor in economic activities. The life of economic activities is development, enterprising and innovation. Only human resources can undertake the task of development, enterprising and innovation, and other factors of production do not have this ability.
2. Human resources are special capital resources. As an economic resource, human resources have the property of capital, which is similar to general material capital. That is, (1) human resources are the products of public society, enterprises and other groups and individuals, and their quality mainly depends on the degree of investment. Fundamentally speaking, this characteristic of human resources stems from people's acquired ability. Because no one's ability can be born, in order to form ability, you must receive education and training, and you must invest wealth and time. (2) Human resources are also resources that may continue to bring benefits in a certain period of time. Once formed, it will definitely bring benefits to investors in an appropriate period. (3) There will be tangible and intangible losses in the use of human resources. For example, the aging of workers themselves is tangible wear, and the aging of workers' knowledge and skills is intangible wear.
However, human resources are different from general capital, and the law of diminishing returns that is generally applicable to general material capital is not fully applicable to human resources. In the economic development of modern society, there is a law of increasing income of human capital, which makes the growth of contemporary economy mainly attributed to human resources.
3. Human resources are high value-added resources. At present, in the national economy, the share of human resources income is rapidly surpassing natural resources and capital resources. In modern market economy countries, the market price of labor is rising, the return on investment of human resources is rising, and the disposable income of workers is also rising. At the same time, there is another change, that is, the income gap between high-quality human resources and low-quality human resources is also widening.
The increasing economic function of human resources is not only the result of improving the quality of human resources, but also determined by the process of self-compensation, renewal, development and enrichment of human resources in use.
4. Human resources are renewable resources. The regeneration of human resources is mainly based on the reproduction of population and labor force, which is realized through the continuous replacement of individuals in the whole population and the process of "labor consumption → labor production → labor consumption → labor reproduction". Of course, the regeneration of human resources is different from general biological resources. In addition to observing the general biological laws, it is also influenced by human consciousness and human activities.