The granting of pensions to retired workers and basic allowances to
laid-off workers is going on smoothly, the Ministry of Labor and
Social Security announced yesterday.
According to ministry spokesman Liu Yongfu, up to 99.9 percent of
laid-off workers in re-employment centers have been granted basic
allowances.
A
total of 50.33 billion yuan (US$6.09 billion) in pension funds have
been paid out to retired workers from enterprises covered by the
country's endowment insurance system.
This totals 99.8 percent of the funds that should have been paid
out.
Data shows that there were in all 6.32 million laid-off workers
from state-owned enterprises (SOEs) by the end of June, 91.6
percent of whom had registered in re-employment centers.
These payments are an amazing achievement considering the fact that
in the past, many local governments were always behind in such
payments.
However, by the second quarter of this year labor authorities in 11
provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions had paid retired
workers roughly 47.9 million yuan (US$5.79 million) that they had
previously failed to distribute.
But in Northeast China's Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, East
China's Anhui Province and South China's Hainan Province, about
170,000 retired workers did not get their pensions on time.
In
Heilongjiang and Hainan, most of the enterprises that had failed to
pay the money were state-owned land reclamation enterprises.
In
addition, with the ministry striving to turn subsidies and
allowances into insurance schemes, unemployment insurance is
playing an increasingly important role in protecting the basic
living requirements of laid-off workers, the spokesman said.
By
the end of June, China's unemployment insurance system covered as
many as 102.51 million people, around 2.4 million of whom have
received benefits.
Ministry officials yesterday also warned that the chances of
laid-off workers finding re-employment might deteriorate.
In
the first half of the year, 790,000 laid-off workers, or 11.1
percent of the total, had succeeded in finding new jobs.
The proportion was 4.9 percentage points less than for the same
period of last year.
With an unemployed population of 6.18 million, China's present
unemployment rate is 3.2 percent, 0.1 percentage points more than
for the first half of last year.
(China Daily 07/28/2001)