The almost 70 million-strong Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) is shifting its role to help the nation's youth solve its practical problems and get more of them involved in helping others.

As the country is facing the possibility of higher unemployment in the next couple of years, the organization, which boasts 69.86 million members, has been making greater efforts to help young people find work.

Zhou Qiang, first secretary of the Secretariat of the CYLC Central Committee, said this is a must if the organization is to build stronger ties with young people. He made the remarks at the ongoing session of the 15th National Congress of the CYLC in Beijing.

Ma Chunlei, deputy secretary of the CYLC Shanghai branch, said: "We used to stress our role as an educator of youth. But now we should listen to the young people's needs on an equal basis, try to satisfy their needs and at the same time guide them away from crime and other bad influences."

League branches in Shanghai, Chongqing and Shandong Province have taken action to help local laid-off youth find jobs or establish their own careers over the past five years.

In addition to local branches' efforts, the CYLC Central Committee has set up a total of 3,630 training centres around the country to teach unemployed young people practical skills, and has invited some young people who succeeded in their own careers to deliver 5,100 lectures to young people, and acted as intermediary agents to help more than 200,000 laid-off workers find jobs.

Starting from this year, the CYLC Central Committee began to use the Internet to help young people find jobs. From the 15th to the 25th of the first month of each quarter, an online job-seeking fair will be launched at www.chinajc.com.

(China Daily July 24, 2003)