From December, China will carry out large-scale spot checks on the labor market, in order to collect more accurate statistics on unemployment in the county, according to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.

Official sources say, they will conduct investigations in over 10 provinces and municipalities. The relevant preparations are under way, and professional training is scheduled for participants once the systems have been fully determined.

The rate of unemployment is usually calculated in one of two ways. One is the official registered unemployment rate, which the Chinese government tends to adopt, and the other is achieved through labor market spot-checks.

The first way is deficient because it ignores those who don't want to work, or for some reason don't register as unemployed. The spot-check method, however, investigates the foundations of labor market information, including the status of employment, unemployment trends, social security, labor relations, working hours, skills and education.

From January to September this year, the average number of people living on monthly unemployment pensions was 3.62 million, 1.29 million more than for the same period last year. During this period, about 773,000 laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises (SOEs), 15 percent of the total, were reemployed. By the end of September, there were 7.52 million who were registered as unemployed, and the official unemployment rate remains at 3.9 percent. It's believed that official urban unemployment rates could be kept below 4.5 percent through improved efforts. The latest statistics show that the number of people taking out unemployment insurance policies has exceeded the 100 million mark.

(china.org.cn by Tang Fuchun November 16, 2002)