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| Noted expert explains China's 4.5 percent unemployment rate |
| CCTV.COM 2003-03-06 12:03:31 |
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China sets its unemployment rate at 4.5 percent in 2003, said Zeng Peiyan, minister of the State Development Planning Commission in his planning report to the First Session of the 10th National People's Congress on Thursday.
This rate is the registered urban unemployment rate, explained Mo Rong, a noted researcher and deputy director of the Labor Science Research Institute under the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. The registered urban unemployment rate for 2002 was 4 percent.
The unemployment rate is defined by three points, namely, the unemployed people are those who are capable to work and willing to be employed and who have registered with relevant departments in cities and towns in compliance with regulations. But the rate still cannot reflect the overall unregistered unemployment situation in China, as it does not include surplus rural labor force and migrant rural farmers looking for jobs in the urban areas, said Mo.
However, the registered urban unemployment rate tells things about the situation concerning the group of people in difficult situation on the labor market, including the most needy unemployed group of people who demand government aid for reemployment and those who required social security aid to be provided by the government, Mo noted. And around half of the registered laid－off people are in need of unemployment insurance.
Though the unemployment rate this year is somewhat higher than that of last year, he noted, it is still within a rational and reasonable range.
The unemployment constitutes a relatively grave problem the world over at present, he acknowledged. The unemployment rate for Europe stood at 7.6 percent last year, 5.6 percent for the United States and 7.6 percent for Canada, and it reached as high at 30 percent in some developing countries. But the unemployment rates in these countries were based on surveys.
According to Mo, a large－scale sample survey was conducted among 100,000 families in 66 Chinese cities by the Labor and Social Security Ministry in December 2002, to get the first－hand information about the structure of the urban labor forces, employment situation and unemployment rate, distribution of income, labor relationships and social security.
Mo said the government work report by Premier Zhu Rongji made suggestions on increasing employment and social security, and Minster Zeng Peiyan's planning report set a concrete goal of employment, which shows that the government pays high attention to the employment issue.
In order to check on the growth of unemployment rate, China began to implement active employment policies this year with priority given to recruiting laid－offs from the state－owned enterprises.
The policies include encouraging the laid－offs to find their own venues of reemployment and the service sector to absorb more jobless workers. Small sum loans are expected to be provided to those workers to start their new businesses, and they will be proved with the retraining and related services free of charge, said Mo.
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Editor: Han Ling Source:Xinhua
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