Government acts to help city dwellers secure jobs

The central government has pledged to step up efforts to help the nearly 300 million migrant workers in China secure more stable jobs and better work experience, as the nation ratchets up its broader push to advance "new urbanization".

Shang Jianhua, head of the migrant workers' affairs department with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said the ministry will work to widen the employment channel for migrant workers.

It will see that favorable policies are implemented to support companies in creating and stabilizing jobs for migrant workers, Shang said at a news conference last month, where officials explained the State Council's five-year action plan for implementing new urbanization.

The favorable policies include returning part of the unemployment insurance contributions paid by companies that haven't laid off any workers or have limited the number of people laid off in the previous year to a certain percentage.

The State Council's five-year action plan has called for promoting stable employment of people who moved from the countryside to cities, such as migrant workers, as a measure to help them settle in urban areas.

Following the action plan, the ministry will come up with policies to support the intelligent manufacturing and domestic service sectors in taking in more migrant workers, and promote the establishment of "labor collaboration alliances" among different regions to better share job opportunities, according to Shang.

The ministry will launch a national public employment service platform to provide high-quality employment services at the grassroots level, Shang said, adding that it will continue to carry out an annual nationwide campaign providing recruitment, training and travel services for migrant workers around Spring Festival, when many of them return to work.

The ministry will strengthen training for migrant workers, Shang said. It will assess the knowledge and skills they have mastered, the jobs they are interested in, as well as the skills they need to improve, and provide training accordingly.

It will also conduct training that is designed to meet the specific talent demand of companies, and further implement a national project initiated in 2022 to nurture skilled talent urgently needed by the country's manufacturing sector.

Guaranteeing migrant workers' workplace rights is another important aspect for the ministry.

The ministry is working on improving the social security system for migrant workers and expanding a pilot program of occupational injury insurance for people engaged in "new forms of employment", Shang said.

"New forms of employment" for migrant workers generally refer to job opportunities arising from the development of the platform economy, such as food delivery and express delivery.

Since July 2022, seven companies, of which six are in the delivery business, have joined the pilot program by paying contributions for occupational injury insurance for their workers in seven provinces and municipalities.

According to the ministry, as many as 8.86 million people in the seven provinces and municipalities have taken part in the pilot insurance program as of the end of June this year.