A law on employment promotion is in urgent need to cope with stark
situation in China's job market and guarantee its healthy
development, said a deputy to the on-going National Committee of
the 10th National People's Congress (NPC), or China's top
legislature, in Beijing.
Zheng Gongcheng, vice-president of the Labor and Personnel
Institute of the prestigious People's University of China in
Beijing, said on Wednesday that an employment pressure will
constitutes a major issue in the country.
Up
to 10 million youths reach the age of employment in China annually,
a vast force of rural surplus laborers in their hundreds of
millions shift to the non-farming sectors, and more than 14 million
off-job workers in urban areas are awaiting re-employment,
explained Zheng, posed a long-term, tremendous pressure on the
employment market.
The Constitution is imbued citizens with the right and obligation
to work, but there is not any specific law to guarantee that, Zheng
acknowledged. And the existing Labor Law, though a law enacted in
this regard, does not have the function of boosting employment, he
added.
Zheng said that in enacting an employment promoting law, the
lawmakers could draw upon China's pro-employment policies issued in
the past and the relevant laws and regulations in the United
States, Russia, Germany and other countries.
The law should include stipulations in the following areas, noted
Zheng, namely, the workers' basic rights to seeking jobs, making
employment one of the gauges for the performance of administrative
organs, ensuring unemployment security and the creation of a fair
job market.
(People's Daily March 13, 2003)
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