China will continue to face serious employment challenges this
year and is likely to create less than half the jobs needed to cope
with armies of new jobseekers and laid off workers.
According to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), urban areas need to create
around 25 million jobs to accommodate newcomers in the labor
market, those who have lost their jobs in state firms, and job
hunters from the rural areas.
But the commission said the country would only be able to create
an estimated 11 million jobs.
"The level of surplus labor this year will reach 14 million,
around one million more than last year," it said in a report
prepared jointly with other ministries.
According to the report, increased pressure on the employment
situation is a result of streamlining by companies and trade
frictions.
China created some 9.7 million jobs in 2005, maintaining a
registered urban unemployment rate of 4.2 percent.
Tens of millions of workers have been laid off from bankrupt or
restructuring state enterprises in recent years. Although the
commission gave no prediction for the country's jobless rate this
year, it said that around 6.6 million people faced possible job
losses over the coming three years.
The nation's new labor force is likely to hit 17 million in
2006, it said, adding that around 60 percent of which would come
from the rural areas.
(Xinhua News Agency February 14, 2006)