The creation of 9 million jobs in 2005 is planned to help lower registered unemployment in urban China for the first time in years.
 
The target urban registered jobless rate will be lowered to 4.6 percent, 0.1 percentage point lower than this year's target set at the end of 2003.

This is the first time since 2000 that the government has lowered the target rate, Yu Famin, director of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security's Employment Department, told China Daily.

The urban registered jobless rate is the official indicator used by the government to make policy decisions on unemployment.

The target rate rose from about 3 percent in 2000 to 4.7 percent in 2004. Yu said the lower target rate for next year is based on robust economic growth and an encouraging job situation.

The Economic Observer, a widely circulated in-depth economic weekly, quoted Ma Kai, minister of the National Development and Reform Commission as saying that the government has projected an increased economic growth rate of 8 percent for 2005.

The rate is one percentage point higher than this year's projection, which was two percentage points lower than this year's actual figure.

Ma also said the nation's job-creating endeavors have paid off and this year more than 9 million additional people were employed in urban areas. The urban registered jobless rate stood at 4.4 percent, 0.3 percentage points lower than the target set at the end of 2003.

Cai Fang, senior researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the wider unemployment picture should include rural areas, where there are still some 15 million surplus workers.

At the same time, a shortage of skilled workers has become a headache in many places, said Yu.

He said shortages are still faced by many industries across China, especially in major economic powerhouses, like the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta regions.

"A dearth of skilled workers has had negative effects on the development of some products, enterprises and industries," said Yu.

Among the country's 70 million workers, senior technicians account for only 3.5 percent, compared with 40 percent in developed countries.

This year, only one out of 10 positions for skilled workers was filled at job fairs and the average worker got two job offers.

To cope with this, the government plans to train 150,000 skilled workers in 2005, following this year's national training plan of 100,000. By the end of 2006, 500,000 skilled workers will have been trained nationwide.

"Western regions and northeast China will become our bases for such training," said Yu, adding that the three-year training program will provide well-educated labor for the country's strategies to develop west China and rejuvenate the old industrial belt.

(China Daily December 15, 2004)