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Jobs outlook bleak for China and Southeast Asia
The jobs outlook for China and South East Asia looks bleak for the rest of this year despite government interventions to try and lessen the impact of recession on their economies.
Several countries have announced current unemployment trends – and it’s clear that media spin and some massaging of figures is going on to make the problems look better.
Despite this, the consistent figure that keeps showing in the figures is that most countries are expecting around 4.5% unemployment by the end of the year,
In China, the government reports millions are out of work and the figures may rise.
Wang Yadong, deputy director of job promotion at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said that the unemployment situation is “grave” as job creation schemes for laid-off workers, graduates and migrants get underway.
"We are still under enormous pressure to provide employment services," Wang said.
China's recovery is still touch-and-go despite economic growth growing in the last quarter to 7.9% year-on-year, up from 6.1% the previous quarter. That was boosted by the government’s cash injection of 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) that has created construction jobs by pumping money in to the economy by creating public transport and infrastructure improvements.
"To make things worse, the financial crisis has still not bottomed out," Wang said. "There is still a great potential risk of unemployment."
About 3 million recent graduates, 33% of this year’s leavers, are unemployed, Wang said.
More than 2 million of 67 rural migrants who flocked to cities seeking work after the February Spring Festival holiday are still don’t have jobs, according to Wang
Wang said Beijing is confident it can keep official urban unemployment below 4.5% this year after it hit 4.3% in the first two quarters.
Of course, urban employment is only part of the picture and leaves much unsaid about the performance of the rest of the Chinese economy.
In Singapore, Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong, said the worst of the recession is still not over.
Gan Kim Yong praised the Jobs Credit wage subsidy scheme and the Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience (Spur), which subsidises worker training, for keeping the jobless figures down.
They were key factors in reducing the jobless rate among residents from 4.8% in March to 4.6% in June.
The dip is due to more job seekers deferring their job search in pursuit of training courses, said the MOM in its report.
Out-of-work residents attending training are not counted as unemployed.
Again the government figures are not reflecting the true jobless rate by focusing on one segment and ignoring others.
HSBC bank economist Prakriti Sofat feels Malaysia’s overall jobless rate may peak at around 4% by the year-end.
'So far, the NTUC has received retrenchment notification for more than 1,500 workers,' he said.
Sofat says Singapore unemployment will increase for two reasons – many companies have falling sales due to the recession and cannot afford to keep employees and other companies are leaving Singapore to cuts labour costs and overheads.
In Malaysia, unemployment is forecast at 4.5% of the working population by the end of the year, according to figures on the official government web site.
