Source: China Daily

03-09-2009 10:55

It looked at first like an acrobatic show.

On a chilly morning last week, a large crowd gathered in front of the National Agricultural Exhibition Center in Beijing to watch 40 students from a Henan martial arts academy perform traditional Chinese boxing and sword-dancing routines.

But the performers had not come to Beijing to entertain. They were looking for jobs.

Led by Party chief Xu Guangchun, in Beijing to attend the National People's Congress (NPC), Henan was showcasing its talents: construction workers and security guards trained by masters from Shaolin Temple, China's martial arts Mecca.

The reason for the first-ever exhibition was lost on no one. Some 2.5 million workers from Henan are among the 20 million who have lost their jobs in China's coastal areas due to the global economic slowdown.

The layoffs come at a particularly bad time for China, as a record 6.1 million college students prepare to graduate and join the army of jobseekers.

Like Xu, the nearly 3,000 NPC deputies and the 2,237 delegates to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) have one thing on their minds: jobs. Proposals on employment account for about a third of all the proposals CPPCC members have put forward.

In his report to the NPC on Thursday, Premier Wen Jiabao promised to add 9 million new jobs this year and keep the urban registered jobless rate below 4.6 percent.