A growing number of Chinese workers laid off by state-owned firms
during the past four years turned to job agencies for
re-employment, not to local governments or their former employers.
Maybe the trend does not intrigue Westerners, but it is very
important in China since, until recently, there was the common
practice for Chinese urban residents to rely on state-owned
companies for long-life employment, heavily subsidized housing
and payment of medical bills.
That may explain the painful experience of millions of blue-collar
workers laid off by state-owned enterprises several years ago, when
dismissal meant the total loss of income and jobless workers had to
pay their own medical bills, as there was no social security system
in China.
Accordingly, private firms were less attractive to job seekers as
they provided no medical and housing allowances for their
employees.
Zhou Zhongliang, 45, a building materials dealer in Shanghai, said
he had formerly relied on the local government and the plant where
he was previously employed when he was laid off five years ago.
He
now views that mentality as "outdated," however, thanks to the
social security system put into place over the past four years.
Zhou has terminated the labor contract with his former work unit
and receives unemployment, medical and pension insurance benefits
according to the local social security arrangement. "I have no
worries about social security now," said the building materials
dealer, one of one million laid-off workers in Shanghai.
Statistics released by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security,
which was set up in 1998, indicate that Zhou's case is not
unique.
A
growing number of the 16.8 million workers who have found jobs
after being laid off during the past four years by state-owned
enterprises are willing to terminate their labor contracts with
former employers.
According to the statistics, 3.08 million workers were removed from
government-funded re-employment service centers last year after
they were re-employed. Among them, 1.42 million, or 46 percent,
chose to terminate their labor contracts with the state-owned firms
they used to work for.
Li
Yuqiong, a self-employed shop owner in Tianhe District in
Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, said she
felt very distressed and hopeless when she was laid off four years
ago.
After that, she opened her own shop. Now Li describes herself as a
self-employed person in very positive terms. She opened her shop
after she was given a small loan by a state-owned bank.
The rapid development of the private sector and the influx of
overseas investment have created millions of jobs, rendering the
labor market more diversified, while housing and medical welfare in
the state-owned sector are being replaced by a comprehensive social
security system.
All these changes have placed state-owned and private firms on
equal footing in terms of welfare, and state-owned firms are no
longer as attractive as they used to be to job seekers.
(Xinhua News
Agency September 13, 2002)