After working for 15 years as a skilled worker in a State-owned factory, Zhu found herself laid off and with little prospects for a new job.

But she found a job with help from staff at the Labour Market in the Tianhe District in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, that provides information and re-employment training for the unemployed. The centre provides occupational skill training, work experience and job counselling.

"The staff at the labour market gave me encouragement and a full range of services," Zhu said. "I am grateful."

Now her main concern is acclimating herself to a life outside the factory.

"I had a hard time to readjust myself," she admitted.

The Market provides over 3,000 notices for recruitment every day. It also offers free job seeking consulting services.

Other courses to help start-up businesses are also quite popular in the city.

In the Retraining Centre of Haizhu District in Guangzhou, a lecture aimed at the unemployed who hope to start their own businesses not only attracts local people but also people from neighbouring Shenzhen and Foshan cities.

It provides hands-on knowledge including how to get a business licence, how to go about making products or providing services, marketing strategies and managerial and financial skills.

The programme began in 2000 and has already trained over 500 people. So far, 77 participants have started their own businesses, creating 600 positions.

Since early this year, the local government agencies, such as the Guangzhou Bureau of Labour and Social Security, have adopted a number of new measures to encourage the unemployed to start businesses like stores and eateries in residential communities.

According to Chen Siyi, director of the retraining and re-employment department of the Guangdong Labour and Social Security Bureau, helping unemployed workers to learn and manage their own businesses is an important way to alleviate unemployment in the province.

"The practice is in line with the mature and freewheeling market economy in southern China," he added.

Severe unemployment

Despite brisk economic performance in Guangdong with double-digit GDP growth in recent years, the local government is still feeling the pinch of surging unemployment.

On the provincial level, official figures indicate that last month the unemployed reached 340,000. The unemployment rate is expected to rise to 2.5 per cent by the end of the year compared with 2.3 per cent last year.

Fang Chaogui, director-general of the Guangdong Provincial Labour and Social Securities Bureau, predicts that during the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-05), the supply of the labour force in Guangdong will hit 36 million with 635,000 in surplus.

Fang said that if this is not appropriately controlled, the unemployment rate is likely to exceed 5 per cent.

Local government agencies have already started to tackle the challenge.

Guangzhou will pool 1.2 billion yuan (US$145 million) for social security programmes, which include enhanced investments to create jobs in community services and domestic services this year.

In particular, the municipal government has allocated 55 million yuan (US$6.6 million) for the Labour Market and to run its labour website.

Meanwhile, the province has channelled 300 million yuan (US$36 million) to the labour market in recent years.

The re-employment efforts in the province has been a major help, said Chen.

A total of 1,300 job search agencies throughout the province have helped 312,000 people get new jobs since 1998.

Retraining centres

Retraining centres across the province, which include 334 State-run and 2,000 non-governmental institutions, have played a major role in helping the unemployed with their career changes.

With subsidies from the government, the centres have begun courses that meet market demand, including classes for domestic services, electronics, electrical work, computer operation and fashion design.

The provincial Labour and Social Security Bureau indicates that more than 1.2 million people have received retraining at these centres, and 65 per cent get re-employed. It is expected that the centres will help train over 1 million unemployed people from 2001 to 2003.

(China Daily July 23, 2002)