8 Nov 91
FE/1224 C1/14
receive vocational training and be paid for their labour and that they have the right to labour protection and social security.
Having a job is the direct embodiment of the right to work. In China, with its large population and weak economy, employment is an outstanding social issue. In old China, corruption on the part of the Kuomintang government and the civil war it unleashed led the national economy to overall collapse and the bankruptcy of large numbers of industrial and commercial enterprises. By the beginning of 1948, 70-80% of the factories in Tianjin had shut down; in Guangdong, the number of factories shrank from more than 400 to less than 100; and in Shanghai, numerous factories were closed down and the 3,000-odd factories that survived had to run at 20% of their normal capacity. Numerous workers lost their jobs as a result of the massive number of industrial and commercial
closedowns.
By 1949, the year the nation was liberated, 4,742,000 workers, or 60% of the nation's total, were jobless. Such was the heavy social burden new China inherited from the old society.
After the founding of new China, the people's government attached great importance to this problem and took various practical measures to ensure employment. In less than four years, virtually all the unemployed left over from old China started work again. Since then, with the annual population growth of 14m, employment has always been a cardinal issue in China's economic life. For a considerably long period of time, job-waiting people in urban areas basically counted on the government for job placements and most of them were employed in public works.
Since the policy of reform and opening to the outside world was adopted in 1979, China has instituted a multi- ownership economic system with public ownership of the means of production taking the dominant position. The employment system whereby the state assigns virtually all the jobs has been revamped and the principle has been carried out to open up all avenues for job opportunities by combining the efforts in three fields - job placements by labour departments, employment in enterprises organized by those who need jobs, and self-employment.
Labour companies have been established in the service of job-seekers, and vocational training has been expanded to improve the laborer's qualities and provide them with as many job opportunities as possible. To solve the problem of employment of the rural surplus labour force resulting from the development of production and the improvement of productivity, the government has devoted major efforts to setting up rural enterprises and encouraged farmers to develop industrial and sideline occupations along specialized lines and on a household basis. Thus those farmers who have quit farming can have work to do without leaving their villages.
Meanwhile, plan, have bes, made for some of the surplus labourers to work in cities. In the economic rectification designed to raise the economic efficiency of enterprises and deepen their reform, a number of enterprises have been closed down, suspended, merged or switched to oner lines of production in the last couple of years. The government, attaching great importance to the resettlement of the workers
SWB
in these enterprises, has provided short-or medium-term training so that they can adapt to their new jobs quickly.
In 1990, the number of workers in urban and rural areas reached 567m, about 3.1 times what it was in 1949; the number of employees in cities and towns topped 147.3m, 9.6 times that in 1949; and the urban unemployment rate stood at only 2.5%.
In old China, women, who accounted for half of the nation's total population, not only suffered class oppression, but also had no right in the family, because of failure to gain economic independence. Those who were able to find jobs in society were subjected to every kind of discrimination. In new China, women enjoy the same right to work as men. The government devotes major efforts to developing social welfare, including nurseries and kindergartens, and encourages women to take up jobs, enabling them to acquire economic as well as political independence. The state law and policies provide special protection for women's employment. The Constitution provides the principle of equal pay for equal work to men and women alike.
The government labour department intervenes and ensures that the mistake is corrected promptly whenever women are found to be discriminated against in their work units, and it stipulates that women get their normal pay during maternity leave. As a result, the number of employed women has been increased steadily, and their field of employment constantly expanding. Nowadays, women's employment rate has exceeded 96% in town and the countryside, trailing behind that of men's by less than two percentage points.
College graduates' employment is fully guaranteed in China. The situation is a far cry from old China, when graduation was synonymous to unemployment for college students. Since the founding of new China, the government has followed the policy of unified job assignment for all college graduates and thus ensured that every one of them has the opportunity to work. In the past 10 years, the government has reformed the job assignment system by combining the students' own choices with the state's guarantee of jobs. The state sees to it that, in light of the needs of various areas in economic development, every college graduate is provided with a suitable job on a voluntary basis. This is why unemployment is out of the question for college graduates in China.
In socialist China, the government guarantees the basic necessities of every worker and his family and sees to it that their life gradually improve with economic growth. Although Chinese workers have relatively low monetary wages, they enjoy a large amount of subsidies, including financial subsidies for housing, children's attendance at nursery and school and staple and non-staple foods, as well as social insurance such as medical treatment, industrial injury and retirement pension and many other welfare items, which are not counted in the wages Statistics indicate that urban residents in China pay only 3-5 / of their living expenses for housing, communication and medical treatment. Since China carried out reforms in 1979, past payment measures have been modified.
On the basis of economic growth and labour-productivity increase, workers' wage levels have been raised proportionally. Therefore, the wage levels of workers have increased rapidly, and there has been an obvious improvement in the