A proposal about how to help jobless migrant workers to efficiently find new jobs was adopted by the on-going local legislative session in south China's Guangdong Province.

Zhang Zhiya, a deputy to the 2nd session of the 11th Guangdong Provincial People's Congress, first proposed on Sunday that a special channel targeting migrant workers should be opened at a local TV station to help them be informed of job vacancies or be trained practical job skills.

Zhang, 37, who migrated in 2001 from east China's Jiangsu Province to work Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, now works as a manager of property management company in an industrial park in Shenzhen. He was elected as a deputy to the local legislature of Guangdong Province along with five other migrant workers last November.

"A prime pastime of migrant workers is to watch TV programs, so I believe launching a TV channel dedicated to migrant workers will be the most efficient and convenient way for them to find new jobs," said Zhang, who said he came up with the proposal after having done a sample survey on 6,000 migrant workers before the local legislature began meeting last Friday.

Zhang's proposal was just one of a dozen motions tabled at this local legislature with the mission to safeguard legitimate rights of migrant workers.

Zhang's move has illustrated what the Chinese government has been trying to do at the moment in order to lend a helping hand to legions of migrant workers who lost their jobs following closure of many factories amid the global financial crisis.

Chen Xiwen, director of the office of the central leading group on rural work, said early this month about 15.3 percent of the 130 million migrant workers returned to the countryside from cities without jobs as the global financial crisis took a toll on the economy.

More than 26 million migrant workers have been working in Guangdong, an economic powerhouse in south China. And 15,661 factories were closed in the first 10 months of last year, including the factories for the production of toys, textiles, footwear and electrical apparatus.

Smart Union Group (Holdings) Limited, a Hong Kong listed company and supplier to US Mattel Inc., whose two factories in Dongguan, Guangdong, were shut down on October 15 laid off more than 7,000 workers .

A total 452,000 migrant workers became unemployed and were forced to leave Guangdong in the past year.

Zhang Baoying, chief of human resources market center with the labor and social security bureau of the Guangzhou city government, said they carried out a survey of more than 397 businesses in February and found the number of work posts with manufacturing companies fell by 30 percent compared with late December last year.

"It is worrying as the manufacturing sector used to be a prime channel that would take up the most number of labor," said Zhang.

Guangdong provincial human resources and social security department predicted that in the first quarter of this year, the province was expecting an influx of 2.6 million migrant workers from outside Guangdong who don't have clear job offers. It warned that many of them would have difficulty surviving if they could not find jobs after they set foot in Guangdong.

In a normal year, however, only 500,000 migrant workers would not have job offers.

Governments at all levels of the country have attached priority to stabilizing employment for migrant workers.

Jobs: a national priority

The State Council, China's cabinet, published on February 10 a circular calling for success in the creation of new jobs under current economic situation.

In that circular, the State Council said it was imperative to introduce proactive employment policies and go all out to ensure an increase in new jobs.

The circular stipulates that an approval should be obtained with concerned authorities in advance if an enterprise wants to lay off 20 or more worker.

Local governments in Guangdong, Shandong and Fujian provinces have responded positively to this circular.

Liu Youjun, chief of human resources and social security department with Guangdong Provincial Government, said on Tuesday that the provincial government of Guangdong had planned to extend greater support to export companies that could keep plenty of laborers employed as a way to slow down job loss.

According to Liu, export companies will enjoy privileges such as adjusted proportions for social insurance contributions or extended deadlines for paying contributions.

He also said Guangdong would offer 10,000 job free fairs this year, with the hope of helping 5 million skilled migrant workers gain reemployment, alongside new campaigns designed to teach 6 million people practical skills through diverse vocational training courses.

(Xinhua News Agency February 18, 2009)