1st LD Writethru: China to keep proactive employment policy

China will keep a proactive policy on employment by providing diversified skills training, encouraging entrepreneurship and restructuring inefficient industries, aiming to boost both the number of jobs created and the overall quality of the workforce.

The State Council's executive meeting on Wednesday presided over by Premier Li Keqiang approved a new five-year program on employment (2016-2020).

"Employment is vital to people's livelihood and provides core support for developing our economy," Li said. "The importance of employment can not be over estimated."

Priorities are to be placed on unleashing market potentials and enhancing policy implementation.

China's economic transition carries huge job potentials, as new economic driving force is growing with strong momentum, calling for immense efforts to keep the skill and talent pool improving with economic upgrading.

The new plan offers a set of measures that will help with such move.

Emerging industries, not least services sectors that facilitate everyday life and productive activities will play a bigger role in creating jobs.

Enhanced efforts will be made in boosting mass innovation and entrepreneurship for job creation. Start-ups will deal with lower institutional cost and a more enabling market environment. New jobs will be more flexible, but offers no less security.

More diversified training will be provided to workers affected by curbing outdated capacity industries.

The new plan also stresses more on building a long-term, systematic approach in job creation, and the government pledges to work more with market forces to guide job creation.

While China successfully withstood challenges in curbing out excess capacity and industrial upgrading, employment across the country remained sound and steady in 2016.

Latest figures from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security shows that the country managed to create jobs for more than 13 million urban population in 2016.

The premier said that equal emphasis is required in developing new economic driving forces and upgrading traditional sectors, stressing that it is a whole-of-government effort.

"With jobs, there is income, and hence a basis for innovation, stability and development. We want a sound momentum forward, and sound jobs are a start," Li said. Endi