China News Service:

Stabilizing and promoting employment has always been a major issue of public concern. What are our current considerations for promoting high-quality and full employment? Thank you.

Li Zhong:

Thank you for your question. Employment is the most basic component to people's well-being. The CPC Central Committee has attached great importance to this matter of wide public concern. The third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee has explicitly prioritized the development of sound mechanisms to promote high-quality and full employment as one of the major reform tasks. We will remain committed to promoting high-quality and full employment, making it a new position and mission for ensuring employment in the new era and new journey. We will implement a principle of promoting self-reliant employment, market-regulated employment, government-backed employment and entrepreneurship, adopting an employment-first strategy and strengthening an employment-first policy. By deepening the reform to the employment mechanism and institution, we are aiming to effectively improve the quality of employment and promote its growth within a reasonable range. To be more specific, our priorities are as follows: 

First, strengthen an employment-first approach. We'll make promoting high-quality and full employment a top priority in economic and social development. To achieve this, we will actively coordinate employment policies with macroeconomic policies, such as fiscal and monetary policies, to better leverage the role of development in boosting employment. While striving to modernize the industrial system, we'll prioritize support to industries and enterprises which are able to create more jobs, and create new employment opportunities in the process of replacing old growth drivers. We'll also step up efforts with creating more job opportunities by adopting key policies, launching major projects and optimizing the allocation of major productive forces.

Second, tackle structural unemployment. In response to the new wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, we'll establish a mechanism to forecast demand for human resources and enhance surveys on employment posts in order to release catalogs of in-demand occupations and those with labor shortages in a timely manner. By doing so, we'll enhance the farsightedness of the development of human resources. Moreover, we'll strengthen the workforce's capabilities by focusing on education, training and employment in a coordinated manner. To this end, we'll improve the system of lifelong vocational training and further implement an action plan to foster more skilled workers, launching the program to enhance workforce skills for enterprises. 

Third, improving the policy support system for key groups. We'll always prioritize the employment of college graduates and young people, and strengthen fiscal support, tax policy support and financial support. We'll intensify efforts to create more jobs and provide opportunities for young people to work at primary level to cultivate talents, and will enhance the alignment of services on and off campus, thus ensuring the overall stability of youth employment. We'll encourage people to seek jobs both in other places and close to their homes as well as foster labor-service brands and improve the service system for migrant workers, stabilizing the employment of migrant workers from rural areas, especially those being lifted out of poverty. We will smooth the channels for unemployed people and those facing difficulties with employment so they can seek assistance, thus improving mechanisms that offer them support.

Fourth, encourage employment and entrepreneurship. On the one hand, we will improve the public service system for employment and ensure a unified and regulated market system for human resources. By doing so, we're aiming to ensure employment services become more accessible, equitable and specialized. On the other hand, we will improve the system for creating jobs by encouraging business startups, optimizing the support system for business startups that covers training programs, business incubators and other relevant activities. We will optimize a comprehensive package of measures, including policy support, provision of workspaces and resource matching, to enhance the quality of entrepreneurship.

Fifth, create a fair environment for employment. We'll improve labor laws and regulations, enhance labor relation consultations and mediation, and improve social security system, so as to protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers. We will intensify market supervision and regulation, as well as strengthen oversight and enforcement of labor protection laws, in order to address such issues as employment discrimination, wage arrears, lack of employment insurance and illegal layoffs. In this way, we'll ensure channels of social mobility. Thank you.