Unemployment Rate Kept Low in GuangzhouThis capital of south China's Guangdong Province has maintained its unemployment rate at 3.15 percent for five consecutive years, which is below the country's average, according to statistics from the municipal bureau of labor and social security.Guangzhou is one of the Chinese cities that have successfully assimilated a large number of laborers and professionals from other provinces and regions, while keeping a stable local employment market. Jiang Yun, director of the labor and social security department,attributed the stable job market to the maturity of a market-oriented employment system. Guangzhou has overcome unemployment problems caused by state-owned enterprise reform. A re-employment project helped nearly 135,000 laid-off workers find other jobs last year in Guangzhou. Since 1997, the city has spent a total of 121 million yuan (14.23 million U.S. dollars) to help the unemployed enroll in professional training courses and supporting people to be self-employed in the private sector. Last year, 190,000 people received professional training and about 113,000 participated in proficiency examinations for professional skills. Partly due to these efforts, the number of registered unemployment dropped to 85,000 last year. Guangzhou's unified job market information network, which includes over 1,000 companies and units, offers more than 6,000 job vacancies daily. In the meantime, the city closed 176 illegally operating job agencies to clean up the job market. |
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