Han Ximin

ximan@126.com

THE city will expand channels for employment of college graduates by organizing online job fairs to counter the impact from the COVID-19 outbreak, a press conference held by the city government revealed yesterday.

Spring is usually the season for job recruitment in China, particularly in March and April. The COVID-19 outbreak, however, has disrupted that tradition, especially for college graduates.

A three-month-long online job fair, which runs from March 30 to June 30, has been initiated by the Shenzhen Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Administration, to pair 600 firms with college graduates. So far, 370 businesses have provided 9,400 posts, Sun Fujin, director of the administration, said.

Public service institutions are urged to appropriately lower their requirements for working experience and skills for college graduates so as to ensure that 70 percent of the posts are available for fresh graduates, he said.

Through an online job fair organized by the Shenzhen Municipal Science and Technology Innovation Commission and National College Graduates Employment Guidance Center initiated April 23, a total of 893 local high-tech companies offered more than 11,400 posts to jobseekers. Students can log onto http://www.szitren.net for more information.

More efforts will be made to maintain stable employment this year, according to the conference.

In 2020, an approximately 6-billion-yuan (US$847 million) unemployment insurance fund will be given out to enterprises to help them retain posts.

To encourage individuals, including college graduates, to start their own businesses, the city has increased the loan ceiling from 300,000 yuan to 600,000 yuan, the highest in the country. Those businesses in the form of partnerships can get a bundled loan up to 3 million yuan. The thresholds for setting up small and micro-enterprises have also been further lowered.

“Those who start up small and micro-enterprises can apply for a loan up lasting to nine years and enjoy nine-year loan subsidies from the government,” said Wu Junjun, deputy director of the Shenzhen Municipal Human Resource and Social Security Administration, estimating that loans totalling up to 1 billion yuan will be given out in 2020 as guarantees for applicants to start up small and micro-enterprises. So far, 400 million yuan of guaranteed loans have been granted.

In the first three months of this year, the newly registered employment population reached 33,000 and the registered unemployment rate stood at 2.18 percent in Shenzhen, lower than the national and provincial averages, statistics with the city’s human resources and social security administration showed.

Sun estimated the city’s new employment population in 2020 will reach 150,000 and due to the outbreak, the city will exempt and reduce payment of social insurance fees by 28 billion yuan in 2020 to stimulate employment.

In the first quarter, more than 486,900 local firms have been entitled to reduction and exemption of social insurance payments, which totaled around 9.06 billion yuan, and have obtained unemployment insurance refunds that totaled 4.8 billion yuan, benefiting 10 million employees.

Meanwhile, the city will allocate 500 million yuan to boost the cultural industry, which is experiencing devastating economic losses with closed venues and canceled performances, exhibitions, and events as a result of the pandemic.

The money will be used as subsidies for cinemas, book stores, art groups and performance venues.

It is one of 22 measures the city has released for the recovery of cultural and tourism businesses, especially small and medium enterprises, which have been seriously affected by COVID-19.

In addition, banks and financial institutions will offer  10-billion-yuan special loans for cultural businesses and the borrower could obtain a subsidy that is equivalent to 50 percent of the interest of the loan within the ceiling of 2 million yuan.

Cultural businesses that rent State-owned properties should be exempt from three months of rent and the management of private cultural industry parks are also encouraged to do the same. 

(Han Ximin)