East China’s Jiangsu province made every possible effort in the first quarter of this year to stabilize employment for economic growth momentum by offsetting the impact brought about by the novel coronavirus disease or COVID-19.
Jiangsu will see 584 thousand college graduates this year, reaching a record high in history.
The provincial authorities have made unremitting efforts to launch online and cloud-based job fairs to counter the impact from COVID-19.
By the end of March, 190 online job fairs had been held across the province with 855 thousand resumes submitted and 223 thousand resumes accepted in preliminary selection.
Jiangsu has also ensured large-scale internship for the fresh college graduates while requiring all the public institutions to offer at least 70% of their job vacancies in 2020 and 2021 to the college graduates.
In the meantime, efforts have been made to help migrant workers return to work in big cities and get employed in their hometown.
In Nanfang Village, Guannan County, 1060 farmers have been hired by the local startup businesses.
The north Jiangsu regions used to be the major source of migrant workers but have witnessed an increasing flow of returning laborers since early this year.
The prefectural cities of Suqian and Yancheng witnessed the recruitment of more than 40 thousand farmers at the local businesses in the first quarter.
The provincial authorities have also released a series of new measures to stabilize the local job market amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
The measures reduced employers’ social security premium payments and refund part of the unemployment insurance payments to relieve the financial pressure on employers. 54.3 billion yuan of social insurance premium had been refunded by the end of March.
The multi-pronged measures have paid off, as is evidenced by the increase of 291.6 thousand employees in the urban areas in the first three months.
Nanjing, Changzhou, Huai’an, Yancheng, Yangzhou and Zhenjiang saw slight increase from a year ago in March.
China’s State Council released a guideline in March to expedite the recovery of employment and keep it stable to counter the impact from the COVID-19 outbreak.
The document outlined measures in five aspects, including prioritizing employment, helping migrant workers return to work, expanding job opportunities for college graduates, ensuring social security to those most in need and improving professional training and employment services.
To help migrant workers return to work, the country will continue with "point-to-point" non-stop transportation, as well as establish a series of urban infrastructure and public service facilities to help migrant workers find work in their vicinity, according to the document.
