OPINION> Commentary
Help migrants find jobs
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-02 07:47

The governments should do more to help migrant workers find jobs, says an article in the Beijing Times. The following is an excerpt:

One remarkable feature of this year's traffic rush after Spring Festival is migrant workers returning to cities earlier than usual. A great number of migrant workers were sacked and had to go back to their rural homes before Spring Festival due to factory closures and shrinking orders amid the global financial crisis.

These farmers have left their families for cities earlier than usual in the hope to find jobs before others. Long lines of migrant workers can be seen at the exits of railway stations in big cities like Beijing and Guangzhou.

But their earlier return to cities may not guarantee that they could be the first to get a job. Many job markets specially made for migrant workers across the country have not yet opened after the holiday and hundreds of migrant workers can be found at the street sides near these markets waiting for the appearance of employers. Compared with urbanites still immersed in the holiday atmosphere, they look like aliens.

In the face of the difficulties of migrant workers, the local governments should rise to the challenge and make necessary arrangements. For example, they may open labor markets before the holiday is over so that migrant workers could get jobs earlier; they may take the initiative to contact enterprises, helping migrant workers get job information; they could also offer temporary relief to those migrant workers sleeping on the streets and at subway stations.

According to government forecasts, the job market in China will face a worse situation during the first quarter of this year and cities will offer limited job opportunities for migrant workers. When a huge number of migrant workers cannot find jobs in cities and stay there idle, it will cause social problems.

Of course, our governments have already taken some precautionary measures such as temporary relief to laid-off migrant workers and the inclusion of some migrant workers in the unemployment registration system and government-funded training courses. But they are far from enough and the governments should do more for migrant workers.

(China Daily 02/02/2009 page4)