Trade unions: Help the unemployed
By Wu Gang (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-05-20 22:36

The growing unemployment situation across the country deserves more attention, trade unions say.

As China moves from a planned to a market economy, the unemployment issue is becoming prominent. Most affected are workers from State-owned enterprises who lost their jobs in the past few years, said the All-China Federation of Trade Unions Thursday.

Women look for job information at a job fair in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province. [newsphoto/file]

Zhang Junjiu, vice chairman of the federation, said three other groups also demand "great attention." They are workers laid-off from collective enterprises in small cities, self-employed people and migrant workers with temporary jobs.

"Trade unions at all levels should include them into professional training, job consulting and other re-employment programmes, and treat them just like workers laid off from State-owned enterprises," Zhang said.

He made the remarks in his work report during a two-day national re-employment promotion meeting in Beijing.

Laid-off workers from collective enterprises, who are often older than average and possess a single skill, are finding it difficult to find new jobs, he said. Many of them are not covered by the government's re-employment policies.

People who own small businesses or part-time jobs are also worth attention as this population is growing rapidly, he said.

Another group is migrant workers,nearly 100 million farmers from all over the country.

"We should look into and help solve the employment and re-employment problems of these groups, especially in respect to labour contracts, social insurance and workplace safety and health conditions," Zhang said.

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions focuses on workers' rights and interests and often participates in shaping government policy.

Thursday, the federation vowed to help the government shape re-employment policies and help laid-off workers find new jobs by providing training or small, interest-free loans.

By the end of last year, more than 2 million laid-off workers had been re-employed after receiving training. That accounted for 59.6 per cent of all retrained workers, according to numbers from the federation. This year the rate is expected to go beyond 60 per cent.

The unions also vowed to improve vocational training institutions, and try to qualify these agencies in governmental assessment in one or two years.

The federation encouraged more local unions to provide loans for small business start-ups.

"No interest should be charged for the small loans while union employees' work should be paid by the unions," said Zhang.

The trade unions invested a total of 133 million yuan (US$16 million) for re-employment by the end of last year.

By the end of 2003, the registered unemployment rate in urban areas was 4.3 per cent, and the number of registered jobless urbanites was 8 million, according to a report of the Information Office of the State Council.

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