China SCIO | March 1, 2020
Economic Daily and ce.cn:
My question is for vice minister You. We are all aware that the post-Spring Festival period usually marks the peak season for rural migrant workers to return to cities for jobs. However, the huge impact of the epidemic is sapping the manufacturing and catering sectors. We want to know about the situation concerning the work resumption of rural migrant workers, and what difficulties will they be confronted with? What steps, to address these difficulties, will the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security take to help the resumption? Thank you.
You Jun:
Thank you for your questions. Hosts of migrant workers, with a desire for reuniting with their families, would initiate journeys back home to savor the holiday festivities and return to work after the festival. However, this year has been overshadowed by a special predicament. Trapped in dire straits by the raging epidemic, numerous migrant workers dared not to go to other places, and some are reluctant to go, resulting in insufficient employment in enterprises in the eastern region and detention of migrant workers in the central and western regions.
In accordance with the requirements by the central government on coordinating epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, on the premise of ensuring epidemic prevention and control, we have taken the following measures, to help rural migrant workers from low-risk areas return to work as soon as possible:
First, establishment of platforms is essential. We have launched a "point-to-point" employment information docking platform for rural migrant workers, encourage all kinds of enterprises to fill in and post job information and demands for work resumption. Through the platform local human resources and social security departments can master the information promptly, and realize the timely information docking for places with labor inflow or outflow. A special section has been set up to dynamically update work resumption information of enterprises, helping workers to timely know the information.
Second, establishment of various mechanisms is also necessary. In concerted efforts with the authorities of public security, transportation, and public health, as well as China State Railway Group, we have set up a "point-to-point" service coordination group to assist migrant workers to return to work safely and orderly. We have improved the information communication mechanism, regular consultation mechanism, and addressed the cross-regional work-resumption difficulties by coordination in a timely manner, thus providing guarantees for regions and enterprises with concentrated demands for labors. Up to now, more than 800,000 migrant workers have been sent back to their posts through "point-to-point" transportation of chartered bus, flight, train and train carriages.
Third, service is reinforced. Free online assistance has been continuously provided, the precise personnel-docking without personal contact is promoted. In this way, employers post their labor demands online, job seekers look for jobs online, and employment service provided online. Service guidelines for enterprise employment and for migrant workers to return to work have been issued to facilitate orderly and safe work-resumption by area. Some local authorities in provinces with inflow requirement of migrant workers have dispatched specially-assigned personnel to labor outflowing places to directly help enterprises already in operation to recruit workers at the expense of their own.
Fourth, key enterprises should be guaranteed as a priority in our efforts to facilitate work resumption. A 24-hour labor dispatching guarantee mechanism for key enterprises is set up to dynamically adjust the list of enterprises. Human resources and social security services specialists are appointed, and the labor shortage is being resolved through a slew of approaches such as assistance for job-resumption, surplus-deficiency adjusting, tapping the potential of the local area, and exporting labor services. Up to now, the labor demands of 7,600 key enterprises have been addressed.
At the same time, we have also strengthened coordination with the public health department to ensure the safe travel and employment of rural migrant workers by improving a series of epidemic prevention measures, such as pre-trip inspection, full-process protection and regular temperature measurement. Thank you.