China's unemployment levels will not be resolved by high-speed
economic growth, a National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) official has
told Xinhua in an interview.
During the Ninth Five-Year Plan period (1996-2000),
China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average annual rate
of 8.6 percent and 8.04 million jobs were created each year.
During the Tenth Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005),
however, GDP grew at an average annual rate of 9.5 percent and only
7.48 million new jobs were generated each year, according to NBS
figures.
From 1996 to 2000 for every percentage point of GDP growth,
there was a 0.13 point rise in employment figures, but from 2001 to
2005, the same GDP success only boosted employment by 0.11 points,
the official said.
The official attributed the phenomenon to a number of factors
including the migration of rural labor to urban areas, structural
adjustments to the economy, the impact of reforms and the
bankruptcy of some state-owned enterprises.
Over 100 million peasants had migrated into cities and snapped
up job opportunities spawned by fast economic growth, the official
said. But as the country optimized its economic structure China's
capital and technology-intensive employment was growing faster than
industries requiring significant numbers of people. ?
The economy depended increasingly on technological innovation
and capital input for growth. Fewer workers were now needed, the
official said. He also referred to the impact of restructuring and
the closure of state-owned enterprises.
In 1995 there were approximately 112.6 million people working in
state-owned enterprises but by 2005 that figure had plunged to
64.88 million. In 1991 around 36.28 million people worked in
collectively-owned sectors but by 2005 the figure had plummeted to
8.1 million.
The official nevertheless expressed confidence about employment
saying the Communist Party of China and the government were focused
on the issue and had made job creation a priority.?
The government would develop occupational training to make the
workforce more skillful and support the development of new
labor-intensive industries, the tertiary sector and privately-owned
enterprises, the official said.
At the end of June 2006 the registered unemployment rate in
China's urban areas stood at 4.2 percent. In the first half of the
year China's GDP growth rate was 10.9 percent.
(Xinhua News Agency August 29, 2006)