About 22.8 million skilled workers will enter China's workforce
in the next five years, adding pressures to the employment market,
a senior labor official said in Hefei, the capital of east China's
Anhui Province.
Hu Xiaoyi, vice minister of labor and social security said
during a recent visit to Heifei that 8.9 million of the new workers
are expected to have advanced work skills.
Statistics with the ministry show 87.2 million workers in urban
areas had professional occupational certificates or skill
qualifications, accounting for 33 percent of the 270 million in
total.
Hu said that by the end of China's 11th Five-Year Guidelines
period (2006-2010), the proportion of skilled workers in the work
force is expected to surge to 40 percent, or some 110 million, of
whom 27.5 million will have advanced education backgrounds or
skills.
The ministry forecast that the employment pressure will continue
with the rising proportion of skilled workers including college
students.
In 2005, 3.38 million students graduated from colleges and
universities, a 20 percent increase from in 2004, while education
authorities estimate 4 million college graduates in 2006.
Those who will seek jobs in 2006 also include 2.7 million
graduates from secondary vocational schools, 2.1 million graduates
from middle and high schools, 700,000 ex-servicemen, 2.6 million
former rural residents who now have urban registered permanent
residences, 1 million laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises
yet to be placed and 8.4 million registered unemployed people.
However, China will create 9 million jobs in 2006 and resettle 5
million unemployed laid-off workers, aiming to confine the
registered unemployment rate in urban areas to 4.6 percent.
Experts say that a large labor force makes China competitive in
labor cost and attractive to foreign investment. However, it also
enables entrepreneurs to confine workers' salaries to a low level,
leading to further economic polarization.
(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2006)