China pledges to boost employment in 2009 amid global job cuts

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

BEIJING, Jan. 6 (Chinese media) -- Amid waves of job cuts

worldwide, China has embarked on active measures to minimize job cuts and has

pledged to boost employment this year.

The financial crisis continues to hurt the fourth

largest economy and pushed many enterprises to cut their headcounts.

The following provinces are among the many in the

country that have striven to stabilize their job markets.

South China's Yangtze River Delta, a major

manufacturing center, has been hit unexpectedly hard. Job vacancies in the

manufacturing sector stood at 41.43 percent of the total in the eastern Zhejiang

Province in the third quarter, a record low in recent years.

The same situation occurred to manufacturers in the

eastern Jiangsu Province with job vacancies in the sector accounting for 50.15

percent of the total, down 0.94 percent over the same period last year, and down

4.16 percent from the second quarter.

To cushion the regions from the effects of the global

crisis, the Yangtze Delta has set up an early warning system to conduct

monitoring of the job situation. At present, six cities including Nanjing,

Hangzhou and Ningbo are the trial areas.

The system is designed for regional labor and social

security offices to collect employment information, such as the possible job

cuts and the planned new recruits in the following week and the actual cuts.

Zhejiang Province will do this in 11 cities this

year.

At the end of November, Zhejiang also cut back

enterprises' payments of social security funds for employees to mitigate their

burden.

Another focus of most cities in the region is to

encourage people to start businesses. Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces pledge to

kick in favorable measures including free skill training for laid-off workers.

Officials and experts said the region expects a

tougher job picture in the first quarter of this year as the global financial

turmoil continued to spread.

Shanghai has launched programs to provide graduates

and migrant workers with subsidies for skill training. On Dec. 30, the first

employment service base was set up in Shanghai for graduates to gain internship

experiences.

The Shanghai government also encouraged business

start-ups to increase jobs. The city pledged to limit the registered

unemployment rate to below 4.5 percent.

Hong Kong posted its registered unemployment rate at

3.8 percent between September to November, up from 3.5 percent between August

and October, an extra 4,600 jobless.

Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, chief executive of Hong Kong

Special Administrative Region, said the current government work aimed at

guaranteeing stability of job markets.

In early December last year, the Hong Kong government took a series of steps to create more than 60,000 posts in 2009. For example, the spending on infrastructure would be raised to about 40 billion Hong Kong Dollars, which would provide 55,000 jobs, 12,000 more than last year. The government would also add 7,700 public servant jobs.

The western Qinghai Province suffered a downturn in

coal and steel industries.

To combat the impact, the province mapped out a

policy to urge vocational training for employees from enterprises facing

shutdown and troubles. The employment subsidy fund and the finance department

will provide training subsidy at 1.5 yuan (0.22 U.S. dollars) per hour.

Pan Li, vice director of Qinghai's employment

department, said the policy would be in force for a year. The government would

offer aid to troubled enterprises and called for no job cuts during this

difficult period.

Shaanxi Province will also offer such free training

to laid-off workers. Its capital city Xi'an will create more than 10,000

community jobs in 2009.

The eastern Fujian Province has rolled out plans to

help graduates from poor families who had difficulty in finding jobs. Aservice

center for human resources in Fujian, and Fujian University of Technology have

decided to jointly spend 120,000 yuan to aid those graduates. The university has

signed with more than 30 companies to establish internship base.

The provincial government will also conduct check-ups

on enterprises which intend to apply for 20 job cuts at a time in 2009.

Jiangxi Province is set to provide migrant workers

with free vocational training. As of Jan.1, 26,000 migrant workers were

reemployed or started their own businesses.

The provinces of Guansu, Anhui, Hebei, Jilin and many

others all have adopted active and diverse measures on jobs amid the financial

crisis, including training programs and loan expansion.

Provinces are set to roll out their own stimulus

measures in 2009, which would also create more jobs.

Zhejiang Province plans to inject 60 billion yuan in

transportation infrastructure construction in 2009. It is estimated that every

100 million yuan investment in highways would create 1,800 direct jobs and 2,100

indirect jobs, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. That

was only part of the stimulus measures in the region.

The southern Jiangxi Province will invest 600 billion

yuan into fixed assets such as highways, railways, airports and water projects,

which will bring about one million jobs.

Investment will hit 1.2 trillion yuan in agriculture,

transport, energy and urban construction in Henan Province. Jiang Duyun,

director of the provincial department of education, said the measures would

"definitely" be beneficial for graduates majoring in such fields.

Fujian Province will spend 170 billion yuan on manufacturing industries, and the western Gansu Province plans 16.5 billion yuan for transport facilities and infrastructure.