White Paper: China Enjoys Overall Stability in Employment

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, April 29, 2002

White Paper: China Enjoys Overall Stability in Employment

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China has enjoyed overall stability in employment despite the fact that the country faces a great pressure in this regard due to its huge population, abundant labor resources and economic restructuring.

That was announced Monday by the Information Office of the State Council in a white paper entitled "Labor and Social Security in China".

The white paper published Monday said that the Chinese government regards increasing employment opportunities as a major strategic task in economic and social development, and controlling the rate of unemployment as a main target in macro-economic regulation and control.

The government has rationally readjusted the employment structure, established a market-oriented employment mechanism, put great efforts into increasing overall employment and maintained basic stability in the general employment situation.

By the end of 2001, the country's population had reached 1. 27627 billion (excluding the populations of the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan Province), and 730. 25 million people were employed, accounting for 77.03 percent of the total labor force. Employees in urban areas accounted for 32.8 percent of the total, and those in rural areas for 67.2 percent. The unemployment rate on record in urban areas was 3.6 percent.

The Chinese government persists in focusing on economic construction, promotes employment through economic growth, carries an active policy of employment, and adopts various effective measures to increase the rate of employment. The government has guided the development of industries and enterprises capable of offering more job opportunities by readjusting the employment structure rationally, said the white paper.

Carrying out the employment policy of "laborers finding employment on their own initiative, the market adjusting the demand for employment and the government promoting employment," the Chinese government encourages securing employment through fair competition, encourages employers to decide the number and quality of their own employees, and adopts measures to promote the shaping of a market-oriented employment mechanism.

In order to raise the cultural level and professional skill of the work force, the Chinese government has striven to promote all forms of education through various channels, and laid equal stress on academic and vocational qualification credentials. At present, the system of nine-year compulsory education covers 85 percent of the total population, and the illiteracy rate among the young and middle-aged has dropped to 5 percent, according to the white paper.

The white paper said since the 1980s, China has set up and improved the employment service system, which includes employment agencies, employment training, unemployment insurance and employment service enterprises.

Attaching great importance to the employment of the rural labor force, the Chinese government has explored new ways for comprehensive employment planning in urban and rural areas in line with the urbanization and western development strategies. Two basic policies have been worked out.

The first is to encourage the rural labor force to find work locally. The second is to guide the rural labor force to find employment in other areas.

Through the common efforts of the government and all sectors of society, total employment in China has grown remarkably. Since 1978, the number of employees in urban and rural areas has increased by 328.73 million, of which 144.26 million are urban employees.

The employment structure, too, has changed dramatically. The employment percentage of primary industry has dropped markedly, while the employment percentages of secondary and tertiary industries have risen rapidly.

To settle the problem of the laid-off and unemployed personnel, the Chinese government, while guaranteeing their basic livelihood, has formulated various policies, complete with a variety of measures, to ease the way for their reemployment. Reemployment service centers have been established in all those state-owned enterprises that have laid-off workers and staff members.

The white paper said the government helps laid-off and unemployed people set up economic entities or labor organizations to support themselves, seek reemployment or otherwise to find their own means of livelihood.

To appropriately resolve the difficulties laid-off employees face after they leave reemployment service centers, the government has organized a "Reemployment Assistance Action" drive to extend prompt and effective service to guarantee their basic livelihood, reemployment and social insurance through various assistance measures.

From 1998 to 2001, over 25.5 million people were laid off from state enterprises, of whom over 16.8 million have been reemployed.

The white paper said that special concern has been given to the employment of women in China. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China, Labor Law of the People's Republic of China, and Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women all contain special provisions on the protection of women's right to employment.

The state protects the right of women to work on equal terms with men, applies the principle of equal pay for equal work to men and women alike, and gives special protection to women during the menstrual period, pregnancy, maternity and breast-feeding.

China adopts the principles of combining centralization and decentralization and encouraging seeking employment on one's own initiative to help the disabled find work, said the white paper.

In the five years of 1996-2000, more than 1.1 million disabled persons were given skill training, and another 1.1 million found jobs, on the strength of government allocations and the employment guarantee fund for the disabled, and the employment rate of the disabled jumped from 70 percent to 80.7 percent.

In addition, the government has established an employment service system for badly-off jobless urban residents, and for older laid-off and unemployed persons. It seeks to arrange jobs for destitute persons by providing funds to support community welfare-type employment organizations, developing community environmental protection, hygiene, security and other services, and providing free employment services. All these measures have achieved the desired effects.

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