Abstract: As an important carrier to reflect the relationship between policy makers and target groups and the key link of policy formulation and implementation， it is of great theoretical and practical importance to carry out the research on the tool choice of public policies. Content analysis method is used to establish a quantitative analysis system of employment policies for China's urban vulnerable groups for the purpose of seeing through the structure and characteristics of the tool choice of current policies. It is shown that the choice of basic type tools takes the majority， the choice of direct and advocative tools occupies a moderate number but not balanced in their micro-structures， and the choice of indirect ones displays a structural deficiency.

Key words: vulnerable group, employment policy, policy tool, content analysis method