To help millions of China's laid-off workers quickly find new jobs, local governments and State-owned enterprises (SOEs) have been resorting to a variety of means to promote the creation of jobs suitable for laid-off workers.

Among such restructured enterprises, Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corp, one of the first SOEs established after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, has earned an excellent reputation for creating new work opportunities for its laid-off staff.

Liu Benren, general-manger of the huge group, which is based in Central China's Hubei Province and has about 110,000 employees, said creating jobs in areas other than iron and steel but within the group's capabilities has been their major means of dealing with the firm's re-employment problems.

In 1992, the number of employees working directly in iron and steel sector was 112,470. That number was cut to 14,850 by 2001 as a result of the group's efforts to improve production efficiency.

"We have been putting equal emphasis on other areas which can offer more job opportunities for our redundant labours," Liu told China Daily in a recent interview in Wuhan.

"I can say that none of the redundant workers in our company has been laid off."

Liu said the main job channels include auto maintenance, food, retailing, construction and property management.

"All these sectors have played a big role not only in re-employment but in guaranteeing smooth growth of our main task - the production of quality iron and steel," said Liu.

The group's statistics indicate that the annual steel yield per employee climbed to 470 tons in 2001 from 42.5 tons in 1992.

In China, the term "laid-off workers" refers to those who have been declared redundant but still remain legally employed, as their employment contracts with their employers, most of whom are unprofitable businesses, are still valid.

With the development of China's social welfare system, especially unemployment insurance, all those nominal employment contracts will eventually be abolished and laid-off workers will have to compete in the job market as ordinary unemployed.

With the continuing increase in size of China's labour force in recent years, experts say less educated and single-skilled laid-off workers are becoming increasingly disadvantaged in the job market.

To relieve the ever increasing employment pressures and encourage people to become self-employed, special low-interest and longer-term loans are available for laid-offs to create their own businesses in many regions.

In South China's Guangdong Province, thanks to the establishment of a special job-training fund, 1 million people have been re-employed in the past three years.

In Dalian of Northeast China's Liaoning Province, some 13,000 job openings have been created by 3,600 private enterprises.

Wang Chunguang, a sociologist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said job assistance is more than simply caring for the vulnerable; it is the duty of both government and society.

"Although lay-offs are a side-effect of the country's market reform, that comes along with industrial restructuring, the transition has a lasting effect on the workers' lives and their children's futures," Wang said.