Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, July 28, 2003
Intensifying Government Responsibility for Promoting Employment: Commentary
Employment is the foundation of people's livelihood and the basic way for the laborers to get incomes and raise their living standards. Successfully solving the employment problem by every means is a major practice in carrying out the "three represents" important thought, the concrete action of doing practical things for the people and the responsibility of governments at all levels. The social responsibility system established for promoting employment under the guidance of the Shanghai municipal government and with the participation of society led to the increase of 265,000 work posts in the first half of this year. This experience merits high attention.
Employment is the foundation of people's livelihood and the basic way for the laborers to get incomes and raise their living standards. Successfully solving the employment problem by every means is a major practice in carrying out the "three represents" important thought, the concrete action of doing practical things for the people and the responsibility of governments at all levels. The social responsibility system established for promoting employment under the guidance of the Shanghai municipal government and with the participation of society led to the increase of 265,000 work posts in the first half of this year. This experience merits high attention.
Intensify government responsibility for promoting employment requires that government at various levels correctly handle the relations between economic development, structural adjustment, deepening reform, the coordinate development of urban and rural economies and perfection of the social security system on the one hand, and expansion of employment on the other, and gradually find a way that can fully promote employment and guarantee the sustained, rapid and sound development of the national economy. While studying formulation of economic-social development plans, government departments should take into consideration the expansion of employment as an important content. In the course of structural adjustment it is necessary to devote efforts to upgrading industries, and pay attention to the development of medium and small enterprises, labor-intensive enterprises and the tertiary industries that play a remarkable role in boosting employment, as well as to economies of different forms of ownership. In the process of deepening the reform of State-owned enterprises, it is essential to set up an employment mechanism based mainly on market regulation and give consideration to the bearing capacity of workers, staff members and society. In urban construction, beautification and management, it is necessary to make overall planning, place emphasis on employment, create more conditions for the masses to make a living, and must not break the rice bowls of the ordinary people.
Strengthening government responsibility for promoting employment requires that governments at various levels take great pains to create a favorable environment for encouraging the laborers to actively start up undertakings and engage in independent employment. No government can provide ready-made rice bowls for hundreds of millions of people, compared to the ��arrangement of employment��, a fair and just employment environment is more important, this means letting the common people themselves find and create their own "rice bowls". Government departments at all levels should thoroughly implement the central government's various policies on supporting reemployment, clear away various obstacles to employment, widen the fields and lower the threshold for starting enterprises, and simplify procedures for employment, help the laborers solve various difficult problems cropped up in the process of employment, and speed up the establishment of an employment mechanism which take laborers' self-employment as the leading factor, employment under market regulation as the foundation and government-promoted employment as the driving force.
Strengthening government responsibility for promoting employment requires that various localities and related departments be subordinated to the general situation, take people's interests to heart, earnestly improve service, work with deep feelings for the masses of people and provide them with conveniences for smoothly realizing employment and reemployment. Relevant departments should not shirk responsibilities, still less should they fall short of the requirements of policies and even set up hurdles under various pretexts. Preferential treatment given to laid-off personnel may affect the interests of certain departments, but this is the need of the general situation and contribution made to increasing jobs, one must not care only for the interests of a locality or department or engage in selfish calculations. The whole society should be more concerned about the lives of the laid-off personnel, show them love, send them warmth and create a good social environment for their employment.
China has a huge population, so employment is a long-term problem. Judged from this year's situation, the nation has nearly 10 million newly added urban laborers, over 6 million laid-off workers from State-owned and collective-owned enterprises, and nearly 8 million registered jobless people. The three figures combined add up to a total of 24 million urban people nationwide who need to be given jobs. With the national economic growth calculated at around 7 percent, there can be newly added jobs for only 10 million people for the whole year, with the annual deficiency of work posts for 14 million people. In addition, the abundant rural work force that needs to be transferred, the first batch of graduates who were among the expanded enrollments into institutions of higher learning now need to go to work in society, as well as the influence of the SARS epidemic��all these factors have resulted in the notable increase in pressure on this year's employment work. Communist Party committees, governments and various departments concerned should clearly notice the grimness of the current employment situation, regard the promotion of employment as the most important task, intensify government responsibility for promoting employment, make greater determination, exert still more efforts and adopt more effective measures, so as to earnestly do this work well that bears on the fundamental interests of the masses of people.