Xinhua News Agency:

General Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed on more than one occasion that the fellow citizens who still live in hardship remain most dearly attached to his heart. What specific measures has the MOHRSS taken to help people in need to find jobs? Thank you.

Li Zhong:

Helping the people in need to find employment is related to the well-being and the basic living needs of the Chinese people. As you said, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that those fellow citizens who still live in hardship remained most dearly attached to his heart. He pointed out that we should pay close attention to people in straitened circumstances, extend care to them with respect and love, and do our best to solve their problems. All regions and all relevant government departments have earnestly enforced the instructions and made every effort to help those in difficulty to gain employment. Here is a set of data: Over the past 10 years, with help, a total of 55.01 million unemployed people and 17.68 million people in difficulty have found work. At the same time, some people in difficulty have heavy family burdens, low skill levels and weak market competitiveness, all of which makes it relatively difficult for them to find employment. Therefore, it is the unshirkable responsibility of government departments to help them find jobs. The MOHRSS will work with relevant departments to consistently increase employment assistance and improve the mechanism to strengthen efforts to help people in need find employment.

First, improve the standing book documenting information relating to employment assistance to bring qualified people in difficulty into the scope of employment assistance in a timely manner. At present, people with difficulty to find jobs in different provinces mainly include people of higher age, people with disabilities, people who live on subsistence allowance or have been unemployed for more than one year, as well as people who find it difficult to secure work due to reasons such as land loss.

Second, strengthen policy support so as to provide strong support for people in difficulty to find employment, start businesses and improve their abilities. We reduce taxes and fees and subsidize social insurance contributions for enterprises that employ people in difficulty. Support such as guaranteed loans and interest discounts are given to people in need who are engaged in self-employment and social insurance payment subsidies are given to those in flexible employment. Vocational training subsidies, vocational skills assessment subsidies and living subsidies are given to those who participate in vocational skills training.

Third, strengthen service guarantees. We adhere to the combination of daily assistance and concentrated assistance, and established a working mechanism featuring target identification, dynamic management, classified assistance and return visits to provide tailored one-to-one assistance for those in need. At the same time, we also continue to hold monthlong employment assistance activities over the New Year's Day and Spring Festival holidays, focusing on helping people in need find a job.

Fourth, strengthen efforts to ensure basic livelihood. For those who are having difficulty finding work through market channels, public service positions such as in security, cleaning and gardening are provided.

Recently, in response to some urgent problems affecting people with employment difficulties, we have cooperated with the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the China Disabled Persons' Federation to organize an employment assistance activity under the theme "heart-warming" to resolve employment difficulties to help the long-term unemployed, graduates from families in financial difficulty, people with disabilities and people in urgent need of employment to provide them with job positions, services, policies and warmth. The activity was launched in early August this year, and we have so far visited more than 570,000 people in need and helped more than 200,000 people find jobs. I would like to take this opportunity to invite people from all parts of society to pay active attention to and participate in this activity, and give more support in employment assistance to help those in need ease their temporary difficulties. Thank you.