At least 15 million people roughly the population of Beijing may
not be able to find jobs in Chinese cities next year, when the
economy is expected to grow at below 10 percent, according to
government think-tanks.
"We anticipate that employment pressure will remain high in
2007, when 25 million urban residents will be seeking jobs, with
only 10 million vacancies available," said Yang Yiyong, deputy
chief of the Economic Research Institute under the National
Development and Reform Commission.
Adding to the unemployed, including laid-off workers, urban job
markets will see at least 12 million new job-seekers next year, he
said in the "2007 Analysis and Forecast on China's Economy," an
annual report published by the Social Sciences Academic Press
yesterday.
The urban registered unemployment rate stood at 4.2 percent last
year. No figure is immediately available for this year, but an
official tally shows that 9.32 million jobs have been created in
the first three quarters, surpassing the target of 9 million for
the full year.
To ease the employment strain, the country would have to cap
urban unemployment below 4.6 percent, and vigorously expand the
service industries, while funding re-employment efforts, Yang said
yesterday.
About half of next year's 12 million new job-seekers would be
college and vocational school graduates, Yang said.
The Ministry of Education said last week that pressure on the job
market for university graduates would "obviously be grave" next
year, when a record number of 4.95 million 820,000 more than the
year before would leave campuses.
In rural areas, there are at least 120 million surplus
labourers, who are seeking work in non-farming sectors. They are
also migrating to the cities, further straining the supply-demand
situation there, Yang said.
"The country's State-owned companies have slowed the pace in
laying off workers, but at least 1 million workers downsized
earlier have yet to find jobs, while more than 3.6 million lay-offs
due to bankruptcy and closures would join the queue in the coming
three years," he said.
To bolster employment, Yang's institute proposed that in
addition to creating 9 million jobs next year, central and local
finances should earmark at least 40 billion yuan (US$5.1 billion)
to fund re-employment, including subsidizing the training of
laid-off and migrant rural workers.
This year, the central budget has allocated 25.1 billion yuan
(US$3.2 billion) to subsidize re-employment, an increase of 4.2
billion yuan (US$538 million) from the previous year.
Fan Jianping, director of the Economic Forecast Department of
the State Information Centre, yesterday said the country should
focus on developing the services sector and other industries that
would spur consumption.
Fan said his research team believed that the odds are high
China's economy would grow at 9.5 percent next year.
The country posted gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 10.7
percent year-on-year in the first three quarters, according to the
National Bureau of Statistics.
On average, many Chinese economists and several world
organizations predict China's economy would grow at 9.6 percent in
2007. Some, however, put the rate slightly above 10 percent.
"Compared with a faster growth rate, it is an optimized growth
model that really matters when it comes to employment," Fan
told.
The shift in the growth model from exports and investment to
consumption would help create more jobs and bring more tangible
benefits to residents, he said.
The anticipated slowdown in fixed asset investment next year
would contribute to the slightly slower economic growth, according
to the "2007 Analysis and Forecast on China's Economy."
The report said fixed asset investment would increase by 20
percent next year, compared with the 26 percent growth rate
estimated for this year.
(China Daily December 8, 2006)