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E-mail China.org.cn, February 17, 2025
Economic Daily:
Providing public services and ensuring public welfare are the most fundamental functions of public finance. Could you share the achievements of fiscal measures in promoting stable employment? What additional measures will be adopted? Thank you.
Lin Zechang:
Thank you to the Economic Daily reporter for the questions. Employment is indeed a matter of significant public concern. It affects not only individual households but also the broader economy, serving as both the foundation of people's livelihoods and a crucial basis for increasing personal income and boosting consumption. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council have consistently prioritized employment stability, viewing it from a strategic perspective. The MOF has made promoting employment a top priority and worked with relevant departments to implement a series of policies and measures to maintain overall employment stability. Let me outline the four main aspects.
First, we have effectively utilized transfer payments to help local governments maintain employment stability. In 2024, the central government allocated 66.7 billion yuan in employment subsidies to help local governments enhance their public employment service systems and address structural employment challenges.
Second, we have stepped up our efforts to implement policies that stabilize employment, and encouraged enterprises to create more job opportunities. We have continued to implement structural tax and fee reduction policies, and maintained policies on the phased reduction of premiums for unemployment insurance and work-related injury insurance, and policies of refunding unemployment insurance premiums to enterprises that make no or minimal cuts to staff members, supporting enterprises in stabilizing and expanding employment. In the first three quarters of 2024, these policies delivered more than 150 billion yuan of benefits to enterprises. At the same time, we have actively leveraged the role of government financing guaranty in stabilizing employment. In 2024, the scale of the re-guarantee business of the national financing guaranty fund reached 1.41 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.6% year on year, with the vast majority used to support labor-intensive small and micro enterprises and self-employed individuals, covering multiple industries such as light industry and textiles, accommodation and catering, postal and warehousing, wholesale and retail, and construction, benefiting approximately 12 million jobseekers.
Third, we have implemented policies to encourage entrepreneurship and promote job creation through business startups. For example, a one-time entrepreneurship subsidy is provided to college graduates who are eligible, jobseekers facing difficulties in securing employment and migrant workers who start their own small and micro enterprises or engage in self-employment for the first time. Another example is that key groups such as migrant workers who start businesses in their hometowns, as well as small and micro enterprises that employ jobseekers from these key groups, can apply for startup guaranteed loans, with subsidized interest payment. Additionally, we have continued to support the implementation of programs on innovation and entrepreneurship education for college students to cultivate and enhance the innovation and entrepreneurship abilities of college students.
Fourth, we have increased support for key groups to maintain overall stability in employment. One measure has been to provide a one-time subsidy to enterprises of up to 1,500 yuan per person for hiring fresh graduates or college graduates who have not been employed within two years after leaving school, encouraging enterprises to provide more jobs for young people. In the first three quarters of 2024, a total of 900 million yuan was distributed to 170,000 enterprises, benefiting 620,000 college graduates and other young people. Another measure has been to support an increased number of posts offered by the "Go West" program and continue to implement grassroots service projects such as the program encouraging college graduates to take community-level posts in education, agriculture, health care and poverty relief, and special employment programs enabling college graduates to serve as teachers in rural compulsory education schools and guide college graduates to work at the grassroots level. In addition, we have made greater efforts to provide vocational skills training for key groups, such as migrant workers and those who have been lifted out of poverty, and strengthened assistance for those in difficulties such as people with disabilities and members of zero-employment families to secure jobs.
Next, the MOF will continue to strengthen investment and support to maintain employment stability and ensure the people's well-being, and implement and improve policies and measures.
First, we will continue to implement policies for stabilizing employment and promoting job creation. We will maintain policies to stabilize and increase employment, such as policies on phased reduction of premiums for unemployment insurance and one-time subsidies for increasing employment, to continuously lower enterprises' operating costs.
Second, we will introduce new measures conducive to increasing employment. According to the decisions of the CPC Central Committee, the MOF will cooperate with relevant departments to prioritize supporting the development of key areas, including the cultural and tourism industry, other modern service industries, and the foreign trade sector. With more stable and improved development of these industries, more jobs will be created.
Third, we will better drive micro and small enterprises to provide more jobs. We will actively make good use of policy tools such as rewards and subsidies for guaranteed loans for business startups and government financing guaranty systems, and channel bank loans and other financial support for micro and small enterprises to better promote their development, and thereby enhance their ability to create more jobs. Thank you.
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