Special Report:Global Financial Crisis
By Chinese media Writer Cheng Yunjie
WUHAN, Nov. 19 (Chinese media) -- With an influx of 300,000 rural migrants back from China's cities in the past two months, the central Hubei Province has ordered some companies to seek approval for job cuts to stabilize the job market.
Under an emergency program to deal with rising unemployment, large state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Hubei were this month required to reduce salaries first before dismissing staff. Large SOEs and medium-sized local companies need to secure approval for cuts involving at least 50 people.
Struggling small businesses in counties and townships were urged to refrain from cutting jobs intensively so as to ease the burden on the local government-financed unemployment insurance fund.
The order along with government measures such as expanding small loans, easing market access and subsidizing vocational training came amid indications that economic growth and exports are slowing.
With production cutbacks and closures of export-oriented companies on the east coast amid weakening demand, Hubei, which had a yearly rural labor outflow of 7 million, was the first of the central and western provinces to respond.
About 200,000 returning workers have been re-employed locally in two months. As the global financial crisis affects the economy, a total of 600,000 are expected to come back by year end, say local officials.
Hubei Provincial Labor and Social Security Bureau deputy director Zhou Layuan was confident the province's employment situation would remain stable before the Spring Festival, which falls on Jan. 25, 2009 and an important occasion of family reunion.
"For a clear picture of the impact of the crisis on Hubei's employment, we should wait until after the Spring Festival. It all depends on how the national economy plays out and how many rural migrants come home," he said.
China's migrant laborers, estimated at between 130 million and 150 million, are a significant economic indicator as their migration from poverty-stricken rural areas to the cities since early 1980s was voluntary and powered by their simple longing for a better life.
NATIONAL ALERT
One signal of trouble was the suspension of plans to raise the minimum salary by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS).
In an effort to "stabilize labor and management relations", the ministry this week allowed some service-oriented companies to adopt flexible working hours and pay.
"With some companies, especially labor-intensive small and medium-sized firms struggling, the employment market has become severe while social security is facing new difficulties, including rising labor disputes," said an MHRSS statement.
The top priority was to take concrete measures to help enterprises tide over the tough times and stabilize employment, it said.
Local labor and social security authorities were ordered to monitor the operations of struggling enterprises and be alert to potential job cuts so as to defuse large cutbacks. Meanwhile, workers must have easy access to labor dispute arbitration to avoid the occurrence of mass incidents.
The ministry stipulated that migrant workers who lost jobs after having worked consistently for at least six months must receive one-off subsistence benefits and government-funded vocational training. Salary defaults should be handled as priorities to protect the interests of migrant laborers and social stability.
Large state-owned enterprises were required to shoulder their social responsibilities to avoid firing workers if possible. The ministry is also considering a plan to subsidize industries with unemployment insurance.
PROACTIVE RESPONSE
One new policy effective as of Jan. 1 in Hubei is to use unemployment insurance to subsidize companies that offer vocational training for in-house re-employment and reward enterprises that have paid insurance premiums for more than two consecutive years without layoffs.
Under current regulations, unemployment insurance can only go to the jobless as living subsistence or subsidies for technical training.
The central government has drawn up plans to create jobs by supporting labor-intensive industries, urging banks to lend to small and medium-sized companies and encouraging self-employment and entrepreneurship.
From next year, Hubei Provincial Government will evaluate officials on whether they meet targets for new self-employment posts and businesses.
In the next five years, the province hopes to help 50,000 people start their own businesses and create 200,000 new jobs every year.
To that end, the small loan ceiling for individuals has been more than doubled from 20,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan, while that for labor-intensive companies is up from 2 million to 3 million yuan. Commercial banks will receive government rewards, with the amount designated at 1 percent of their total small loans.
In Guangdong, where factory closures put many rural migrants out of work, measures were enacted to facilitate rural labor transfers within the province.
All companies that had signed employment contracts with rural workers and paid social security insurance for more than a year would receive government subsidies. Firms making outstanding contributions to local rural labor employment would be rewarded by the provincial government.
Firms with a significant rural labor employment ratio would receive tax breaks. Although very few rural workers have returned to Chongqing, another major exporter of labor, the municipality has pledged preferential land, tax and loan policies if they want to start their own businesses.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment