China warns of 20 million urban jobless

China warned yesterday that it was facing its worst ever unemployment crisis, with millions of unskilled people being laid off from traditional state-owned industries and the number of urban jobless expected to rise to more than 20 million over the next four years.

The dire predictions featured in a White Paper on employment and social welfare issued by the State Council and Wang Dongjin, Vice-Minister of Labour and Social Security.

'The Government is fully aware that the employment problem in rural and urban areas will remain severe and structural unemployment will become more serious,' the paper said.

It stated that from 1998 to last year, more than 25.5 million people were laid off from state-owned firms, of which 16.8 million had been re-employed, leaving 8.7 million still without new employment.

Mr Wang added that over the next four years China was likely to see the number of urban jobless rise to more than 20 million.

China put the number of registered urban unemployed at 6.8 million at the end of last year, with about 150 million surplus rural labourers.