Statistics show that more than 1 million jobless and laid-off workers in east China's Zhejiang Province have found employment here over the past three years.
Sources said that between 1998 and the first half of the year, a total of 698,600 unemployed people in the urban area and 319,400 laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises found jobs.
At present, the number of the province's laid-off workers has dropped from the 304,000 in 1998 to the current 34,400, according to statistics.
The successful re-employment of such a high number of jobless and lay-offs is attributed to Zhejiang's new employment system, under which laid-off workers can get unemployment benefits and insurance.
The new system encourages laid-off workers to find jobs on their own, as opposed to the tradition of getting work through the re-employment service centers.
Starting this year, laid-off workers of the province will not register in reemployment service centers for finding new jobs.
Statistics show that the number of the re-employment service centers for enterprises' laid-off workers in the province has dropped from the former 3,422 in 1988 to the current 894.
The provincial committee of the Communist Party of China and the provincial government have adopted a series of preferential policies encouraging the development of tertiary industry, non-government businesses, and small and medium-sized enterprises for the purpose of absorbing more laid-off workers.
At present, 68 percent of the new employees in urban areas are working in the non-government economic entities, and 58.2 percent are in the service sector.
(Xinhua News Agency 09/21/2001)
