Category News of China

China to build 5,000 internship bases for youths

China is to build up to 5,000 “bases” in 2009 to provide internship positions for the young to better prepare them for the job market as it feels pain amid the global financial crisis.

The Chinese Communist Youth League, a government body for work related to the young, will coordinate in recruiting qualified companies and individuals, the League said on Monday.

The youth leagues at municipal or provincial levels will select suitable companies to form the “bases”, businesses or sets of businesses which will be able to provide positions for at least 10 interns each year with basic living allowances.

Qualified candidates for the intern positions are job-hunting fresh university or vocational school graduates, those who have failed to find a job since graduation, young laid-off workers, and young migrant workers.

The first group of nearly 2,000 such bases are already selected and made public, offering about 60,000 positions in the industries of finance, publishing, telecommunications, manufacturing and transportation.

The aim of this move is to ease the employment pressure and achieve a win-win situation between the companies and the youths, according to the Youth League.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said on January 20 that there would be 7.1 million college graduates seeking vacancies this year, including 1 million of those having failed to secure jobs last year.

The ministry also said, as of the end of 2008, there were 8.86 million urban residents registered as jobless, 560,000 more than the end of the third quarter.

Govt to provide incentives to job-seeking college graduates

China’s State Council announced over the weekend a plan to provide incentives to job-seeking college graduates, including professional training and preferential loans for start-ups.

The government said it would help train one million unemployed college graduates in the coming three years to make them better qualified for jobs.

The Cabinet also said that civil service posts and state-owned companies should not charge job application fees from college graduates whose families are in financial hardship.

For graduates who are willing to work in rural areas or join the armed forces, the loans for completing their college education might be partially or fully waived, the notice said.

Labor-intensive companies are also encouraged to recruit college graduates, with preferential government loans up to two million yuan ($293,000) for each company.

Any graduates who are willing to kick off their own business would qualify for small loans of 50,000 yuan each.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said that as of December 31, there were 8.86 million urban residents registered as unemployed, 560,000 more than at the end of the third quarter.

CSRC shortlists ‘840 in US’ for jobs

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has reportedly shortlisted about 840 executives from the US financial sector to work in China.

The CSRC is on a mission to the US to recruit about 1,700 such executives, mostly ethnic Chinese, threatened by the economic crisis.

The commission’s team is now in Chicago after interviewing 150 candidates in New York from Jan 17 to 19.

Another team, commissioned by 20 financial institutions from Shanghai, was in the US last month.

The ongoing overseas drive will not be the last, a CSRC official said, because the China Banking Regulatory Commission, China Insurance Regulatory Commission and the People’s Bank of China are planning similar missions to the US.

The CSRC recruits will get one year to adapt to China’s working environment. During that period, they will work as research consultants for CSRC’s capital market planning and development committee.

After a year, they can opt to work for CSRC’s other divisions, or the Shanghai or Shenzhen stock exchanges – or choose to continue their research work.

“Faced with uncertain times, many overseas Chinese in the US financial sector are looking for openings back home. They just need a channel to do so,” said Chen Xunyong, chairman of Wall Street Ren, one of the largest financial associations of ethnic Chinese in the US.

Over 100,000 jobs were lost in the US financial sector in 2008, and more are likely to be cut this year, Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc, a Chicago-based placement agency, has said.

But not everyone has welcomed the overseas recruitment drive. For instance, Cai Jiaqi, of Shanghai’s municipal committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, advises caution.

“Some overseas experts may use the ‘financial alchemy’ they have learned on Wall Street to harm, rather than benefit, Chinese companies,” Cai said.

China’s unemployment rate climbs

China’s urban registered unemployment rate jumped for the first time in five years to 4.2 percent as of Dec 31, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said on Tuesday.

The jobless rate, which excludes migrant workers and farmers, was 4 percent in the first three quarters of 2008, Yin Chengji, the ministry’s spokesman, said.

China has raised its unemployment target to 4.6 percent this year, which would be the worst since 1980, as worsening global financial crisis takes its toll on the country’s export-led economy, Yin said.

During the fourth quarter of last year, the number of registered jobless urbanites jumped to 8.86 million, 560,000 more than that in the third quarter.

However, the ministry maintained that the current unemployment situation in the country was “better than expected” and was confident to bring it under control this year.

“We are fully prepared for this year’s grim job market outlook despite the global financial crisis,” Yin said.

“The situation will get stable if the country’s economy rebounds in the second half of this year and the job stimulus package works well.”

The ministry said it aims to create jobs for 9 million new urban laborers, 5 million laid-off workers, and 1 million people, who are facing difficulties finding work, this year.

“Improving the employment situation is our top priority and everything we do is aimed at achieving the goal,” he said.

More than 10 million migrant workers lost their jobs in the third quarter of 2008, after falling demand overseas forced the closure of around 670,000 factories, especially in the coastal regions, the ministry said in an earlier report.

The ministry warned again that fresh university graduates are bound to face a hard time securing jobs, with some 7.1 million entering the job market this year.

Since last year, the central government has implemented a series of economic and job stimulus measures to boost domestic demand and create more jobs.

But experts have warned that there is pressure mounting on the job market owing to the economic downturn, and “labor officials should be cautious and alert”.

“The current employment situation is very severe,” Chen Guangjin, an expert on employment issues with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.

“The market cannot meet the increasing demand as lots of firms have closed down. If the government pours more investment in the labor-intensive sector, the situation can get better.”

New aid measures set for jobless workers

Amid waves of job losses worldwide, China has embarked on measures to minimize them and pledged to boost employment this year.

The financial crisis continues to hurt the fourth largest economy and has pushed many enterprises to make layoffs.

The following provinces are among many in the country, East China in particular, that have striven to stabilize their job markets.

Yangtze River Delta

Yangtze River Delta, a manufacturing center, was hit exceptionally hard. Unemployment in the manufacturing sector stood at 41.43 percent of the total in Zhejiang province in the third quarter, a record low in recent years.

The same situation occurred with manufacturers in eastern Jiangsu province with unemployment in the sector accounting for 50.15 percent of the total, down 0.94 percentage point over the same period last year, and down 4.16 percentage point from the second quarter.

To cushion the blow, the Yangtze Delta has set up an early warning system to monitor 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 possible job cuts and plans for new employees 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 the businesses’ burden.

Another focus for most cities in the region is to encourage people to start businesses. Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces pledge to provide favorable incentives, including free job 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 continues 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 municipal government also encouraged business start-ups to increase jobs. The city pledged to limit the registered unemployment rate to below 4.5 percent.

Across the nation

The eastern Fujian province has rolled out plans to help graduates from poor families who have difficulty in finding jobs. A service center for human resources in Fujian, and Fujian University of Technology have decided to jointly spend 120,000 yuan to aid the graduates. The university has signed with more than 30 companies to establish internship base.

The provincial government will also conduct check-ups on enterprises that intend to apply for 20 job cuts 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 Gansu, Anhui, Hebei, Jilin and many others have adopted measures on unemployment, including training programs and loan expansion.

Provinces are set to roll out their own stimulus measures in 2009, to create more jobs.

Zhejiang province plans to inject 60 billion yuan in transportation infrastructure construction in 2009. It’s 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. 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.

Those are only part of the whole stimulus plans carried out by provinces in 2009.

“The governments are doing what they should do and these measures will prop up employment in the long run”, said Wang Dewen, a labor economist from China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

He added China now was going through industrial restructuring with new and more advanced enterprises emerging, which would demand employees with specialized skills and knowledge.

“Migrant workers are the worst hit groups and vocational training will be necessary to equip them with skills and knowledge which would qualify them for better jobs”, Wang said.

According to a December report from CASS, the registered unemployment rate was estimated at 10 percent.

“With this series of measures kicking in, the job situation would be easier than expected in the second half of this year”, Wang said.

The central government kicked off a stimulus package of 4 trillion yuan in last November to buoy economic growth, which, analysts agreed, would boost employment. Part of the investment had been earmarked before the package was rushed out.

Yang Yansui, a specialist in labor law and the director of the employment and Social Security Center of Tsinghua University, said the country’s 4-trillion-yuan stimulus plan would create only temporary jobs. More investment should go to the public service sector, which would bring long-term and sustainable jobs.

The Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Yin Weimin said on Dec 29 that China vowed to create 9 million new jobs in urban districts this year, 1 million fewer than last year’s target. The registered urban unemployment rate will be kept under 4.6 percent.

The Chinese urban unemployment rate from 2003 to 2007 was lower than 4.3 percent, but the target for 2008 was set at 4.5 percent because of the severe employment situation.

Yu Faming, director of MHRSS employment promotion department, said the oversupply of labor would be more severe this year with 24 million people seeking jobs, mainly including 13 million new urban jobseekers and 8 million laid-off workers.

China’s disabled see mixed job fortunes in 2008

About 331,000 disabled Chinese in the urban areas found jobs in 2008, bringing the total to 4.67 million, but the number employed in rural areas saw a marked drop, statistics from the China Disabled Persons’ Federation show.

The number of employed disabled people in rural areas fell by almost 930,000 to 16.04 million in 2008, said Wang Xinxian, secretary of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Wang was addressing a national work conference in Hangzhou, capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, Monday. Wang did not explain the contrast at the conference.

With the help of government and non-governmental programs, 6,193 disabled applicants were admitted into colleges and universities last year, and 675,000 received job training, federation figures showed.

Almost 102,000 homes of poverty-stricken disabled people in rural areas were renovated last year and about 3.17 million disabled people came under social insurance programs that included pension schemes, medical, unemployment and industrial accident insurance, the figures showed.

Wang said the priority this year was to speed up the building of social security and service systems for the disabled, especially for those in rural areas.

The federation would endeavor to improve education and living standards for China’s 83 million disabled, who account for 6.34 percent of total population.

The federation jointly launched a three-year project with the Ministry of Science and Technology on Monday to invest 150 million yuan ($21.94 million) to develop technologies and products that may facilitate information access for the disabled.

Shanghai to look for talents abroad

Shanghai plans to send recruiters overseas once again to fill top financial jobs in Shanghai, a senior government official said.

Huang Weimao, an official with the Shanghai municipal human resources and social security bureau, said on Sunday that the bureau is taking more Chinese enterprises, colleges and institutions to Washington in May for a job fair aimed at overseas Chinese graduates.

“We are collecting information about the types and number of talents that are most in need,” Huang said.

“We need talents in information technology, life sciences, pharmaceutical, finance, modern services, and auto making,” he said. “But still, we will target mainly financial talents.”

Huang said that the compensation packages many Chinese enterprises are offering are similar to those in developed countries.

You Weishun, director of North America Chinese Scholars International Exchange Center, said that China should take advantage of the current economic situation to attract overseas candidates.

The economic recession has left more than 100,000 Wall Street workers unemployed. He estimated that 10,000 to 20,000 of them are Chinese, many of whom are willing to work in China.

“Plus their salary expectation has dropped almost to half, from about US$80,000 per year to about 300,000 yuan per year,” he told the paper.

And Shanghai has always been attractive to overseas workers, according to Huang.

In 2008, more than 5,000 overseas Chinese graduates moved to Shanghai for a job, excluding Shanghai residents who graduated from overseas schools and returned home.

Migrant workers try hand at entrepreneurship in hometowns

NANCHANG – Half a year after being laid off by a Beijing-based electronic product sales company amid the global slowdown, Yu Yanbin has become his own boss, running a leather product factory in his hometown.

Yu went back home to Gangbei Village, Xinjian County of east China’s Jiangxi Province in May. Following the suggestion of a township official, he set up the factory — Jiangxi Haobo Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd. — in August.

“I do not need to pay rent or taxes. The government will pay half of the interest on my loan of 50,000 yuan,” equivalent to about US$7,320, said Yu, 31. “All this ensured a smooth beginning.”

Across the country, millions of migrant workers have gone home earlier than they did in previous years for the Lunar New Year holiday, since the factories they worked at closed or suspended production as the world economy slowed.

The Ministry of Agriculture said some 7.8 million migrant workers had returned home. Many fear they won’t be able to find new jobs after the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, so they might just stay home.

The government has offered loans and tax cuts or exemptions to encourage these returnees to start their own businesses. A two-day annual central rural work conference last month decided the government would help returned farmers become entrepreneurs through loans, speedier permit approvals, tax cuts or exemptions and counseling.

Tan Sanguo, a Xinjian County official, said some 2,000 migrant workers had returned home. Some were growing mushrooms, while others had set up building material plants.

“Migrant workers have gained some knowledge of the market economy and non-agricultural industries after years of work in cities,” said Cui Chuanyi, a rural economy researcher of the Development Research Center under the State Council, or cabinet.

Many also have accumulated savings and mastered certain skills, he added. “All these are favorable conditions for them to start businesses.”

The expert said it was necessary to encourage migrant workers to start their own businesses, given the critical employment situation. Running a rural business would contribute to development in the countryside, he said.

But many of these former migrants lack the capital and technical skills to go into business for themselves.

A survey conducted by agricultural authorities and banks in June showed more than 50 percent of 400 rural youths they interviewed lacked funds and technology to start businesses.

Tang Nianzhou, 32, a former migrant worker from Wucun Village, Changxing County of Zhejiang Province, leased 5.3 hectares and planted some distinctive local crops such as tea. But he’s been troubled by lack of funds.

In November, he managed to get a 100,000 yuan low-interest loan from the county’s Rural Cooperative Bank. “That helps a lot,” he said.

Job loss in real estate sector on the rise

Falling sales and tumbling prices have forced many real estate companies in major Chinese cities to cut jobs, slash salaries and trim commissions.

Some property developers are known to have laid off as many as half of their staff in the past several months.

“The cost of human resources accounts for a big share of the cash flow though it occupies a very small share in the real estate developing cost,” said Li Wenjie, a managing director from Centaline Property Agency Ltd. “Since projects do not sell well in current market, it is hard to maintain a liquid cash flow”? forcing developers to cut salary expenses, he said.

Zhujiang Real Estate Company in Guangzhou is reported to have retrenched nearly 40 percent of its total staff, while cutting the salaries of the remaining ones by up to 30 percent.

“In the past, we were used to fat year-end bonuses and other rewards,” said a salesperson with a Bejing-based high-end property developer. “This year, we are worrying about our jobs.”

Despite reassurances from top management, the staff morale at Vantone, a leading Chinese property developer, has been depressed by the layoffs in units involved in different development projects. “We aren’t sure how many (people) have gone,” a source in the company said. “I don’t know when it will be me.”

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, real estate investment growth slowed to 22.7 percent in the first 11 months of 2008, down from 31.8 percent in a year earlier period.

The China Real Estate Index Academy forecasts that the real estate investment growth will slow further in 2009. It said that many large real-estate companies have remained confident in the long term. But short-term uncertainties have forced many to trim their investment plans.

More job losses may surface for urban workers in 2009

BEIJING, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) — Cai Fang, a renowned labor expert in China, warns the country may see more job losses among urban workers in 2009 after millions of migrant workers became unemployed last year.

The majority of job losses in 2008 were mainly reported among migrant workers, Cai, head of the Population and Labor Economy Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS), wrote in an article published in Caijing Magazine in December.

Migrant workers, who often work in factories, are among the first to bear the brunt of the current global financial crisis. Statistics from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security showed 10 million of China’s total 130 million migrant workers went back to their rural hometowns jobless last year after some exporters were forced to shut down or halt production to avoid losses as a result of decreased overseas demand.

As a result, the income of rural and urban residents could grow at a slower pace, Cai said. The deceleration of income growth would definitely hurt consumption, he added.

Weak domestic consumption would further slow the country’s economic growth. In addition, the other two growth engines — export and investment — are also not doing well, Cai said.

This could lead to more job losses across the country, he added.

“In the end, there could be a noted increase in the unemployment rate for 2009.”

The government has already taken actions to promote exports, investment and consumption in order to boost the economy.

Measures so far include a four-trillion-yuan stimulus package, raising export rebates to benefit exporters and tapping the vast rural market with more government subsidies for farmers to buy home appliances, among others.

Cai also said the unemployment rate compiled by the government would not rise markedly in 2008 because rural laborers are not counted in the figure.

The unemployment rate was 4 percent for the January-October period in 2008. The unemployment rate in 2007 was also 4 percent.