Revisiting Wenchuan 4: Jobs key for recovery in quake hit China

Seven months after the Wenchuan earthquake, thousands of people in both towns and the countryside are still out of work.

The government has pledged to support labor-intensive industry and small- and medium-sized enterprises to protect jobs amid the global financial meltdown.

Thegovernmenthaspledgedtosupportlabor-intensive
industryandsmall-andmedium-sizedenterprisesto
protectjobsamidtheglobalfinancialmeltdown.
(CCTV.com)

Today, in Revisiting Wenchuan, Han Bin examines the reemployment situation of the survivors in Sichuan Province. As he finds out, jobs are key, to putting life into both the local economy and its people.

Tomorrow in the Revisiting Wenchuan series, Han Bin checks on a family he interviewed 7 months ago. He also examines what survivors need aside from social donations. Please join us.

This man is teaching aspiring entrepreneurs how to run a small business. The training program is jointly run by the ILO and the Provincial Labor and Social Security department. The students are all from the quake zone. The program helps them identify market opportunities and provides financial support to the most needy.

Deng Banshan is one of the project initiators. He believes that creating opportunities is more important than providing skills.

Deng Banshan, Crisis Program Coordinator, International Labour Organization, said, "We are trying to provide integrated approaches to support local small enterprises to recover, and the creation of new small enterprises, because only the small enterprise at the time, can create a lot of job opportunities. "

Deng Baoshan says the big enterprises need longer time to recover. His organization reckons about a million and a half people in quake-hit Sichuan Province lost their jobs, with unemployment rates in some areas exceeding 80 percent.

Li Jun from the provincial Employment Bureau says over a million have been re-employed over the past months, but still about 400,000 are still jobless. Employment is an important part of the recovery process.

Li Jun, Deputy Director, Sichuan Employment Bureau, said, " Most of the eliminated job positions not been restored, and re-establishment projects have yet to be started. This has put great pressure on the employment situation in Sichuan."