A recent sample survey shows that, currently, it is not easy for the unemployed to find new jobs in China. The survey was conducted in late August by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security among people in 10 large cities - Shenyang, Qiqihar, Nanjing, Hefei, Zhengzhou, Yichang, Changsha, Chengdu, Guiyang and Xi’an.

It showed that half of the unemployed were people aged below 35. More than half had lost their jobs because of enterprises having to lay off employees to survive, or because their work contracts had expired. Thirty percent of the unemployed had never had any jobs, and more than 10 percent simply had no desire to work any longer.

About 70 percent of the unemployed had participated in re-employment training, and half of them thought the training was useful in helping them find jobs, according to the survey. Matters of interest to everybody included unemployment insurance, ways to quickly find a job, and a stable social guarantee system.

Among the surveyed laid-off workers, most were poorly educated and with heavy family responsibilities. Nearly 40 percent expected to find jobs through social re-employment service centers in the latter half of the year. Some 70 percent were involved in various kinds of debts with their original workplaces, for instance, they failed to get the wages and reimbursement of their medical expenses.

Besides, people are moving from rural to urban areas in response to higher wages, but once there, they are competing with redundant urban workers for jobs.

Chen Gang, a leading financial official of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, said that the government would adopt active measures to straighten out the relationship between labor and capital, clear debts between enterprises and laid-off workers, and strengthen the social guarantee system.

“Governments at all levels will provide more professional training and preferential policies for the unemployed to promote labor guarantee work,” promised Chen.

In addition to the survey, statistics from Shanghai, the largest city of China, shows that the number of registered unemployed workers reached 200,800 last year, an official unemployment rate of 3.5 percent.

In the next five years, China’s total new labor supply is estimated at 52 million, but the country’s industries can only offer about 40 million jobs, according to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.

(China.org.cn 09/06/2001)