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Creating more jobs is the fundamental way to relieve the army of urban poor, who are numbered more than 30 million or make up eight percent of the total urban population, said a member of China's top advisory body.
"Assistance and relief" cannot lift the urban poor from poverty, said Ye Weizhen, who is attending the first session of the 10th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Creating jobs should be the top-most objective of the government, she stressed.
Statistics from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security show that young people entering the labor force will reach the peak during 2001-2005 period, averaging an annual growth of 2.9 million. This, plus the laid-off workers, will bring the total unemployment up to 22-23 million every year. Yet, the number of jobs created each year is about seven-eight million, leaving a gap of 14-15 million.
In addition, there are nearly 150 million rural surplus labor seeking jobs in cities, exerting a mounting pressure on employment.
Although the government is spending an increasingly amount of money on ensuring the minimum cost of living for urban residents, there is still a large number of urban poor falling victim of diseases and natural disasters for their low levels of living and education.
"The government should incorporate employment and reemployment as part of the strategic objectives of macroeconomic control," said Ye Weizhen. "The government should adopt such measures as job counseling, increasing personal income tax for use to support the development of the service sector, the labor-intensive industries and private sector that have the promising largest capacity of absorbing labor. In addition, the government should strengthen the redistribution of income to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor."
She proposed that the government provide the private sector of the economy with equal opportunities as the public sector and treat it equally with regard to financing, employment and land use.
She also said that community service is the potentially most promising sector to take in labor with a comparatively low level of education, especially laid-off workers who have lost their advantages in age.
She called for great support to the healthy development of mini-enterprises and family workshops, which she described as "water-storage pool", namely, capable of absorbing a large number of labor, but are still in the initial stage of development.
(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2003)
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