The job offerings are part of the city’s “40-50 program” that seeks to provide jobs and job training for women in their 40s and men in their 50s.

“This is just a start,” said Zhu Junyi, director of the city Labor and Social Security Bureau. “In addition to the 97 projects that offered jobs, we have another 153 projects that will start recruiting laid-off workers before June.”

Officials said they were optimistic that 25,000 laid-off workers will be able to find jobs in the next two months and another 25,000 will be working in the year’s second half.

City officials announced in February that this year they will create 100,000 jobs, many of which will go to women in their 40s and men in their 50s who no longer have market-able skills.

The bureau has selected 250 ideas from 1,200 submitted by the public on the sort of jobs that should be available for older laid-off workers. The ideas include knitting sweaters and raising a type of worm that is used for medicinal purposes, officials said.

To entice firms to bid for establishing job-creating projects, low- or no-interest loans were offered.

On Saturday, 97 of the first projects began looking for workers. The work includes delivering milk to schools and working in tea houses.

Xuan Huaniu, an official with Baibang Recycling Co, said his firm wants to hire 180 people.

Xuan said employees would collect and repair old items, such as household appliances, and then sell at a relatively low price.

“The work is not very difficult. I think it is suitable for older laid-off workers,” Xuan said.

Wu Junyan, who represented a public utility company, only wanted to hire 20 people to be water-meter readers. But he was flooded with 700 applicants.

Shanghai’s jobless rate climbed slightly to 3.5 percent at the end of last year, an increase of 0.4 of a percentage point over the previous year.

City officials said they do not want unemployment to rise above 4.5 percent this year.

(eastday.com 04/23/2001)