Recruiting in China

At present, China's employment situation remains stable and some positive changes have emerged. Human Resources and Social Security Minister Yin Weimin said that he is confident that all the current annual employment targets will be achieved.

In the first seven months of 2009, China created 6.66 million new urban jobs, 970,000 of which were created in July. In this period, 3.15 million laid-off workers were re-employed and 930,000 people facing employment difficulties found jobs, which is overall better than expected.

At the beginning of 2009, China set employment targets requiring that 9 million new urban jobs be created over the year and registered unemployment rate be controlled below 4.6 percent. In the first seven months, the number of newly-created jobs has already accounted for 74 percent of the target, and the registered unemployment rate stood at 4.3 percent as of the end of second quarter, curbing the upward momentum which has existed since the end of last year. The number of monthly newly-created jobs in cities and towns has basically stabilized since the second quarter.

The monthly increment of about one million employment opportunities is essentially maintaining the same level as that recorded before the outbreak of the international financial crisis. This indicates that China's employment has gradually bottomed out.

Yin said that in order to achieve the annual employment target, in addition to continuing to boost employment by closely integrating the expansion of domestic demand with economic development, implementing more active employment policies and strengthening training will also improve employability. Priority should also be given to promoting the tertiary industry and small and medium-sized enterprises to stimulate employment.

However, according to overall analysis, the current conflict between labor force oversupply and shrinking demand is still acute. According to the latest estimates from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS), there will be over 24 million people in need of employment in 2009. "If calculated on the basis of an eight percent economic growth rate, only about 12 million new jobs can be provided after a whole year's economic growth. The gap between supply and demand will further widen compared to that of 2008," said an MHRSS official.