---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 13:27:53 +0800 From: AMRC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: 450 million *surplus* workers in China by 2010 Recently I posted some comments on the situation of workers in China which included the issue of the mass dismissal of 50 million workers from the state sector. Aside from laid-off workers, _China Daily_ quotes a government report showing that they expect there to be 450 million *surplus* workers in rural areas by 2010. In fact by 2000 they expect the number to reach 370 million. Although the report raises concern over mass rural-urban migration, where workers will become *migrant* workers without job or social protection, the Government in fact supports the World Bank's *labour mobility* policy as a solution to rural poverty. The World Bank has already made a US$486.4 million loan to the Chinese Government to promote migration to cities and industrial zones under a labour mobility scheme being implemented in Guanxi province. This loan is part of the Southwest Poverty Reduction Project which asserts that the solution to rural poverty is migration to the cities to find jobs. Gerard Greenfield
