450 million surplus workers in China by 2010

From Gerard Greenfield, 3 December 1997

Recently I posted some comments on the situation of workers in China which included the issue of the mass dismissal of 50 million workers from the state sector.

Aside from laid-off workers, China Daily quotes a government report showing that they expect there to be 450 million surplus< workers in rural areas by 2010. In fact by 2000 they expect the number to reach 370 million.

Although the report raises concern over mass rural-urban migration, where workers will become migrant workers without job or social protection, the Government in fact supports the World Bank's labour mobility policy as a solution to rural poverty. The World Bank has already made a US$486.4 million loan to the Chinese Government to promote migration to cities and industrial zones under a labour mobility scheme being implemented in Guanxi province. This loan is part of the Southwest Poverty Reduction Project which asserts that the solution to rural poverty is migration to the cities to find jobs.