China has recently launched a survey on rural laborers' numbers and their employment status, announced Sheng Laiyun, deputy director of the Department of Rural Social and Economic Survey under the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), at a symposium on migration and the labor market on June 8, 2009.

The survey, initiated by the NBS, will conduct monthly, quarterly, and annual samplings in 15 provinces including Henan, Guangdong, Gansu and Yunnan. Together with telephone interviews, the survey aims to outline the overall living, development, employment, and social insurance status of the large rural labor population, as a reference for formulating relevant policies in the future.

China stands at a turning point in economic development. The large rural labor population wields a significant influence on employment and income distribution policies.

"We are conducting a trial to register the rural laborers' telephone numbers. Our staff will be able to contact the laborers at all times. The sampling process (of phone number registration) will be mainly carried out in provinces where most migrant laborers originate, as a supplement to the overall monitoring system," according to Sheng.

A monitoring system covering 220 million

"How many rural laborers are there in China? A variety of statistical methods has resulted in several different figures. This does cause problems when formulating policies," said Sheng.

According to the latest results from the NBS, by the end of 2008 the number of rural laborers in China totaled 225.42 million, of whom 140 million or 62.3 percent are migrant laborers, and about 85 million or 37.7 percent work in their hometown.

The survey and monitoring system will cover basic household and employment conditions, migrant and local laborers' working conditions, income and expenses, living standards and social insurance as well as those starting their own businesses after returning home due to the global economic downturn.

The annual report focuses on the migrant laborers' employment rate, the quarterly report on their self-employment prospects, and the monthly report mainly on those returning home or moving around the country. In addition, a survey on household migration will also be included.

"The reports will show employment changes by updating figures promptly to help us adjust measures more quickly and efficiently," said Sheng, adding that the phone interview method will be on trial in middle and west China this year.

Ninety families from nine villages in south China's Yunnan Province have been surveyed by means of telephone interviews. Yunnan is one of the principal sources of migrant labor.

The need for the new monitoring system has been highlighted by the mass return of migrant laborers that started from the end of 2008. The actual number of unemployed migrant workers is in dispute as several governmental departments have released different figures resulting from different statistical methods and sampling timeframes.

The monitoring system, which has been undergoing trials for three years, will enhance statistical reliability and validity; policy makers will therefore be able to make adjustments accordingly.

"Following the outbreak of the financial crisis, the government launched a vocational training program. But its success has been limited because policy makers are not very clear about the size of the population they are targeting," explained Cai Fang, president of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics (IPLE) under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

A further complication is the unemployment rate in China. "The official unemployment rate only counts urban residents," revealed Wang Dewen, a researcher with IPLE. "A large number of rural laborers should be included in the employment census."

Wang suggests bringing rural laborers who live in cities for more than six months into the statistical process. "This will facilitate the reform of the social insurance system," said Wang.

In response to the suggestion, Sheng said the NBS will improve the monitoring system and has carried out trials in some provinces. Southeast China's Jiangxi is planning to expand its employment supervision mechanism to cover rural laborers returning from other provinces.

(China.org.cn by Huang Shan, June 11, 2003)