A government-sponsored training project named "Sunshine Program"
has helped 7.2 million Chinese rural laborers find jobs in
non-farming sectors since 2004, said Vice Minister of Agriculture
Wei Chao'an on Tuesday.
By the end of October this year, 8.3 million rural laborers had
taken training courses on work skills in such industries as
manufacturing, construction and service, with 86.7 percent of them
finding new jobs, said Wei at a symposium in Wuhan, capital of
central China's Hubei Province.
In 2004, six ministries, including ministries of agriculture,
finance and education, launched the Sunshine Program to offer
professional training to rural laborers and teach them how to lead
urban life and protect their basic rights.
Under the program, each trainee gets a subsidy for training
expenses, which stood at 100 yuan (US$12.5) per person in 2004 and
rose to 171 yuan this year.
Most of the trained laborers secured job contracts with a term
of one year or longer as well as an average monthly payment of 833
yuan. The salary is 200 yuan more than that of untrained rural
workers and 400 yuan above that of farmers, according to statistics
of 50 counties in 2005.
Over the past three years, the program has received allowances
of 1.25 billion yuan from the central government and more than 1.5
billion yuan from governments at the provincial level.
China has 490 million rural laborers, only 13 percent of whom
receive education at or above the level of senior middle
school.
(Xinhua News Agency November 9, 2006)