III. The Government Shoulders Human Resources Public Management and Public Service Responsibility

In recent years the Chinese government has played an active role in public management of and public service for human resources, accelerated the transformation of its functions, and improved the government accountability system, to create a favorable policy and social environment for workers to work with dignity and for talented people to excel others.

Implementing an active employment policy

Long facing the difficulty that supply of labor outstrips demand, China always has the arduous task to secure stable employment and create more jobs. The Chinese government always makes employment promotion the top priority for economic and social development. To fully develop and make effective use of human resources, it implements a strategy that promotes job creation and a policy that actively increases employment, and strives to help urban and rural workers enhance their overall qualities, gradually expanding employment. The government is shouldering more responsibilities in promoting employment, and government investment has been increased to provide equal employment opportunities for all. By intensifying its efforts in offering employment assistance such as occupational skill training courses, the government helps zero-employment families and people who have difficulty finding employment land jobs. A unified labor market has been set up to provide equal opportunities and services for both urban and rural workers. Relying on policy support and market orientation, the government has solved the reemployment problem for over 30 million workers laid off by state-owned enterprises, and incorporated subsistence allowances of laid-off workers into their unemployment insurance. From 2005 to 2009, over 50 million new jobs were provided in urban areas, and nearly 45 million surplus rural workers were transferred to non-agricultural sectors. At the end of 2009 the number of registered unemployed persons in urban areas was 9.21 million, with an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent.

After the 2008 financial crisis swept the world, the Chinese government adopted a more active employment policy to meet the challenge. For enterprises in difficulties, it postponed their payment of social insurance premiums or lowered the rate of some social insurance premiums; and it adopted relevant tax reduction or exemption policies, encouraging enterprises to maintain or increase their levels of employment. Moreover, the government carried out a special vocational training program, and launched a series of employment service activities, striving to create more jobs through multiple channels. Focusing on college graduates, it encouraged them to find jobs at the primary level, in medium-sized and small, and non-public enterprises. In 2009 a total of 11 million urban jobs were created; the employment rate of college graduates reached 87.4 percent; over five million laid-off workers found new jobs; and over 1.5 million people with difficulty finding jobs got reemployed.