Zhu Calls for Improvements in Employment, Social Security

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 05, 2003

Zhu Calls for Improvements in Employment, Social Security

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Premier Zhu Rongji, in his government work report to the First Session of the 10th NPC Wednesday, called for further efforts to improve the work of job creation and social security, emphasizing that governments at all levels should take it as a major duty.

Adhering to the policy that calls for "the worker to find a job on his own, the market to regulate employment and the government to promote job creation," the government should do everything possible to expand employment and reemployment, according to the report.

In the course of reform of state-owned enterprises, the government should combine the reduction of staff for higher efficiency with the promotion of reemployment. Policies and measures designed to encourage reemployment of laid-off workers must be conscientiously carried out.

The government should open more avenues for employment, developlabor-intensive industries and make full use of the role of the tertiary industry, small and medium-sized enterprises and the individual and private sectors of the economy in the area of job creation. The labor market should be standardized and developed.

"We should encourage people to look for jobs on their own or become self-employed and promote flexible and diverse types of employment. We should vigorously develop vocational training and employment services and improve our guidance and services to college and vocational school graduates in their search for jobs and career opportunities," the report says.

The government should continue improving the work of ensuring payment on time and in full of the living allowances for workers laid off from state-owned enterprises, the basic pensions for retirees and subsistence allowances for the urban poor.

The government should also do a good job of streamlining the "three-stage guarantees." Social security coverage should be expanded by upgrading basic old-age pensions and medical insurance for workers of enterprises in urban areas.

The government should steadily incorporate living allowances for laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises into the unemployment insurance. The government should rationally determinethe criteria for eligible recipients and the exact level of each recipient, so that all the eligible urban poor will receive the benefits to which they are entitled.

The basic livelihood of workers of state-owned enterprises in difficulties and those which have already gone under must be ensured appropriately.

The government should raise social security funds through a variety of channels and manage them properly. Existing assistance systems for low-income people should be improved and more should be established, and close attention should be paid to properly resolving problems encountered by the neediest urban households inhousing, children's schooling, medical care and heating. Work should be done to ensure the success of pilot programs for a new type of rural cooperative medical system.

"We should expand other social benefit undertakings, such as social welfare, social relief, preferential job placement for ex-servicemen and mutual aid. The legitimate rights and interests of women and children must be effectively protected. We should also improve our work concerning senior citizens and give greater support to the cause of the disabled," the report says.

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