Cover News:
Last year, 11.86 million new urban jobs were added in China, far exceeding the target set in last year's government work report. We've noticed that the target for this year is to create more than 11 million new urban jobs. How was the target set? And, is there some leeway in this employment target? Thank you.
Guo Wei:
Because of the COVID-19 epidemic and other serious shocks, employment faced particularly grave challenges last year. As mentioned before, in the first quarter of last year, China's economy shrank by 6.8% year on year. The government work report last year set a target of creating more than 9 million urban jobs, which was actually rather demanding, given the situation at the time. In order to achieve this goal, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council gave high priority to ensuring stable employment, and stepped up efforts to ensure employment, people's livelihood and market entities. In fact, ensuring market entities also helps ensure employment. Local governments and relevant departments have also proposed many ideas and introduced various policies to stabilize employment. As the economy recovered and policies yielded results, employment gradually recovered. Last year, 11.86 million new urban jobs were created, exceeding the target set in the government work report, and no large-scale unemployment occurred. This was not an easy task.
Employment still faces great pressure this year. Around 15 million new urban jobs need to be created, including those for over 9 million college graduates. The government work report, in accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, continues to prioritize ensuring employment, and clearly states that improvements should continue to be made to the employment-first policy to enhance its performance. Based on the employment demand and economic recovery trend, the report sets the employment target at 11 million new urban jobs — the same as 2019 — and surveyed urban unemployment rate at about 5.5%. The economy is still recovering, market conditions are still complex and serious, and uncertainties are still on the rise. Under such circumstances, the targets are not easy to meet and greater efforts are required to do so. Thank you.
