Tian's six-point plan to solve employment crisis
10/3/2008 10:48
The employment situation will be "very severe" this year, even though
China has generated 51 million jobs in urban areas in the past five years, Labor
and Social Security Minister Tian Chengping said yesterday.
Speaking on
the sidelines of the First Session of the 11th National People's Congress in
Beijing, Tian said about 20 million new job seekers emerged every year.
Cities and towns could only provide about 12 million jobs each year, but
huge numbers of migrant workers were flowing into urban areas, the minister
said.
Premier Wen Jiabao said in his government work report, delivered
last Wednesday, that "providing adequate employment opportunities in China,
which has the largest population in the world, is a daunting challenge."
Tian said six measures will be taken to promote employment:
1.
Implementing a job-creation strategy and prioritizing job generation in the
course of social and economic development.
2. Improving active employment
policies.
3. Encouraging job creation through start-up
businesses.
4. Improving the employment service system for
job-seekers.
5. Providing occupational training to resolve structural
mismatches in the labor market.
6. Establishing an unemployment early
warning system, and striving to maintain stable employment.
Wen said
China spent 66.6 billion yuan (US$9.3 billion) in central government subsidies
over the past five years to support employment programs.
The problem of
finding new jobs for former state-owed enterprise staff had been basically
resolved, and the work of incorporating basic cost-of-living allowances for
laid-off workers into the unemployment insurance system had been completed, the
premier said.
The urban unemployment rate over the past five years was
lower than 4.3 percent, but the ministry has set the 2008 target at 4.5
percent.
Meanwhile, a senior labor official said the new Labor Contract
Law should be implemented fully before it is amended.
"After it came into
effect in January, the law was welcomed by employees and most employers, but we
also noticed different views and comments," Vice Minister of Labor and Social
Security Sun Baoshu said.
The law aroused concerns that it would affect
the investment environment and raise labor costs.
However, Sun said:
"Such an interpretation shows an incorrect understanding or lack of
understanding of the law." Sun said: "It is not right - and illegal - for
companies to pursue high profits at low cost, which means at the expense of
workers' rights and interests."
Xinhua
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