Employment "long-term" challenge as China's farmer-turned workers top 230 mln
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Employment "long-term" challenge as China's farmer-turned workers top 230 mln
16:47, March 10, 2010
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Increases the bookmark Wei told a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament, that he saw contradictions between current reports about "labor shortage" in coastal cities and massive underemployment in rural areas.
"We need further analysis on the reported 'labor shortage'," he said. "On the one hand, it is difficult for enterprises in coastal areas to recruit enough workers this year. And on the other hand, it is difficult for the countryside to transfer its redundant laborers to cities for employment."
The vice minister noted that over-supply of labor and underemployment would remain a challenge for China in the much longer term with its huge number of rural labor force.
Wei quoted the National Bureau of Statistics as saying that China had about 230 million farmer-turned workers last year, of whom about 145 million were seeking job opportunities outside their hometowns.
The number of redundant laborers in rural areas totaled about 90 million in China, home to a population of more than 1.3 billion.
In the government report submitted last week to the NPC, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao vowed to keep the urban registered unemployment rate no higher than 4.6 percent this year while guiding workers in an orderly flow, especially rural migrant workers.
Source:Xinhua
41.4% of "new generation migrant workers" hope to settle down in cities where they work
16:38, March 10, 2010
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Increases the bookmark The term "new generation migrant worker" was coined in the 2010 Central Document No.1, and immediately aroused the interest of the media. "As I talk with my fellow workers, they do not want to return to the countryside. Even if they cannot stay in big cities like Beijing, they will go to some small and medium-sized cities," Sun Heng, head of the Art Ensemble of New Generation Workers and director-general of Home of Workers, told reporters.
He added, "since arable land is limited for comparatively too large a population in China, it would be unrealistic for all migrant workers to return to the countryside where they would be unemployed. The megatrend is that they will live and work in cities."
Of the 2,381 urban youngsters surveyed, 65.5 percent agree that migrant workers hope to settle down in small and medium-sized cities near their hometowns; 33.7 percent choose towns; 32.8 percent think that the "new generation migrant workers" are most likely to settle down in cities where they are now working; and 28 percent anticipate that they may return to the countryside.
However, more of the "new generation migrant workers" hope to settle down in cities than urban youngsters expected. Of the 346 migrant workers surveyed, 41.4 percent want to settle down in cities where they are now working; 61.2 percent prefer small and medium-sized cities near their hometowns; 29.7 percent would like to return their rural hometowns; and 23.3 percent are willing to live in towns.
By People's Daily Online