Jobless rate hits 4.2% due to SARS
( 2003-07-30 07:09) (China Daily)
China's registered jobless rate climbed to 4.2 per cent by the end of June,
with 7.95 million registered unemployed in the country's cities.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Security Tuesday issued the latest
rate, which was 0.2 percentage points higher than at the end of last
year.
The government is aiming to keep the jobless rate below 4.5 per
cent this year.
An official report posted on the ministry's website last
month said that about 14 million urban job seekers will be disappointed this
year because of the lack of job vacancies.
About 24 million new urban
labourers, workers laid off from State-owned enterprises and registered jobless
people have been swarming into job fairs but 10 million openings at most will be
available by the end of this year.
Ministry officials said that China
regards employment growth as its top economic priority, and the country will
take every measure necessary to boost employment.
Zhang Xiaoqiang,
secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission,
acknowledged that China has started to feel the growing employment pressure,
especially since the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS).
China's service sector was once a key element for providing jobs
for new people coming into the workforce, but it experienced a sharp downturn
during the SARS period, Zhang said.
He predicted that the impact of the
virus on employment in China would still endure for "some time.''
Another
report from the State Council's Development Research Centre showed that China's
labour supply has already reached a peak.
This year, the Chinese
workforce is bigger than it was last year by more than 2 million workers, the
centre's report said. Over the past five years, 70 per cent of the new members
of the workforce found jobs in the service sector.
However, the centre
noted that catering, commerce and social services were the worst hit by SARS.
Many small and medium-sized enterprises had to shut down and this inevitably led
to a sharp decrease in demand for workers, the report said.
SARS slowed
down the growth rate of the income of urban and rural residents and forced
between 7 million and 8 million labourers from rural areas to return to their
hometowns, the centre added.
It said the per capita income of China's
farmers was reduced by about 35 yuan (US$4.50) in the second quarter of this
year.
The Development Research Centre predicted in its report that the
employment pressure and financial difficulties of needy rural and urban
residents would be the major issues in China's future economic development.
SARS worsened China's employment situation, which had already been
struggling, said Zhang of the National Development and Reform Commission. He
said China had to develop its labour-intensive industries and provide the
necessary assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises to help create more
jobs and offset the negative effects of SARS.
China will rebuild
confidence in the country's service sector by improving service quality, Zhang
said, creating a clean and safe industrial environment.The recovery of the
tourism and civil aviation sectors will be the key for China in shaking off the
shadow of SARS, Zhang said.
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