SCMP
Wednesday, May 2, 2001
LABOUR DAY
Re-employment figures fall to record low for quarter
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The percentage of jobless people who returned to the workforce fell to
a record low in the first quarter of this year, according to official
labour figures.
Only 4.8 per cent of unemployed people, or 331,000, returned to work
in the first three months - a drop of 2.7 percentage points compared
with last year, the China Youth Daily, quoting figures from Labour and
Social Welfare Ministry, reported. The report said 50 per cent of
unemployed people returned to work in 1998, compared to 40 per cent in
1999 and 35.4 per cent last year.
Despite early reports that more people were laid off as a result of
accelerated state-owned enterprise reforms, the Labour and Social
Welfare Ministry claims that fewer people were forced to leave the
work force. About 6.53 million people were laid off at state-owned
enterprises, which is 40,000 fewer than the end of last year, ministry
statistics reveal.
During the past three years, the Government had closed nearly 1,000
large and medium-size state firms to avoid losses to the state, with
23 of them employing more than 10,000 workers and some more than
50,000, said the Beijing Daily.
"The record low re-employment rate indicates that the situation has
become worse," an official at the Labour and Social Welfare Ministry
was quoted as saying, adding that the main reasons for the
difficulties encountered by the long-term unemployed in getting back
to work were their age and lack of skills.
The poor implementation of the country's re-employment policy also
contributed to the drop, he admitted.
From the beginning of this year, the Government has closed 938
re-employment service centres in Beijing that had been set up since
August 1998 to help laid-off workers find new jobs.
