State enterprises in Xinjiang ordered to hire 25pc of new staff from local minorities

State enterprises in Xinjiang are required to hire at least 70 per cent of new staff locally, Xinhua reported yesterday. At least 25 per cent must be from ethnic minorities.

The requirement is part of a central government campaign to improve economic conditions for Xinjiang people and assuage public grievances following a series of terrorist attacks that have rocked the region and some other cities recently.

Hou Lixian, deputy director of the region’s labour and social security bureau, said at least 70 per cent of new staff must be local people in order to ease unemployment in Xinjiang. He said a special fund would be set up to boost labour intensive industries, especially textile and garments.

Su Guoping, deputy director of the region’s state enterprise administration, said the 25 per cent staff quota for minorities was intended to create 30,000 jobs for non-Han Chinese residents of the region within three years. The administration will also start 292 projects to create up to 45,000 jobs in the less developed southern part of Xinjiang.

The region in China’s far west is home to about a dozen ethnic minorities, of which the largest by far are the Turkic-speaking Muslim Uygurs, who number about 8.8 million, or 45 per cent of the population.

The government will also start a system to monitor and gauge the number of unemployed in the region, Xinhua reported.

The measures follow a Politburo meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping on Monday at which leaders vowed to improve employment and boost bilingual education in response to a spate of deadly terrorist attacks in Xinjiang and elsewhere.