The national urban and township unemployment rate was reduced to
4 percent last year, thanks to the creation of more than 12 million
jobs and despite more people entering the workforce, a top labor
official said yesterday.
The number of jobs created exceeded the target of 9 million set
at the beginning of last year, Zhai Yanli, vice-minister of Labor
and Social Security, said at a press conference.
Zhai said that by the end of the year, 99.9 percent of the
country's 869,000 former "zero employment" families had succeeded
in finding work for at least one member.
Last year saw the total urban and township unemployment rate
fall by 0.1 percentage points for the third year in a row.
During the period of economic restructuring in the late 1990s,
the rate rose to a high of 6 percent.
Zhai attributed the decline to the country's economic growth and
measures to stabilize employment. He said the rate will be held
within 4.5 percent this year.
Every year for the past decade, China has posted double-digit
GDP growth. Between 1978 and 2006, the number of urban and township
jobs rose from 95.14 million to 283.1 million.
But the country continues to face employment pressure, with 10
million people entering the workforce every year between now and
2010, according to official figures.
At the same time, the move away from labor-intensive industries
in line with efforts to upgrade the economy and improve
productivity will also mean fewer jobs being created in those
industries, Chen Liangwen, an economics researcher at Peking
University, said.
Research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has suggested
the government look to create more jobs in the country's tertiary,
or service, industries.
While these already account for about 39 percent of the
country's total jobs, the ratio in many developed countries is
between 50 and 60 percent.
Zhai also said the ministry is mulling over a new salary
regulation, to guarantee steady pay rises.
"The regulation has been drafted and is now soliciting advice.
It will be submitted to the State Council for deliberation after
certain legislative procedures," he said.
Labor experts have said the new regulation, together with the
newly implemented Labor Contract Law, have helped China enter a new
era of employer-employee relations by offering more protection for
workers.
Wen Yueran, an expert in labor relations from Beijing's Renmin
University of China, said low salaries were a major factor in
accelerating China's economic growth over the past two decades.
The country's total wage payments fell to 41.4 percent of GDP in
2005, compared with 53.4 percent in 1990, according to figures from
the National Bureau of Statistics.
Workers will need some hefty pay rises if China is to increase
its wages-to-GDP ratio to the 55 percent level of most developed
countries, Wen told the 21 Century Business Herald.
Low wages and slow pay increases have had a negative impact on
society and cooled consumption, Chen said.
Steady and rational pay rises will help stimulate domestic
consumption, which fell to a record low of 51.1 percent of GDP in
2006, Chen said.
(China Daily January 22, 2008)