State Council calls for aid to migrant workers

China will take a series of steps to ensure the "orderly" migration of rural workers from their hometowns to cities, the State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided on Wednesday.

According to a statement from the meeting, the government will encourage the development of vocational and technical schools, with rural areas as the major source of students, to improve migrant workers' skills.

"The government will try to ensure that all students who fail to enter senior high schools or universities receive vocational education," the statement said.

The government will also offer a series of preferential policies to migrant workers, such as loans and other financial support, to help them start their own businesses, the statement said.

It said the government will build various systems to ensure that wage promises are kept for migrant workers and make sure that their pay is equal to that of their urban counterparts.

It pledged to provide free cultural activities for migrant workers in cities.

In another development, the Council decided on Wednesday to remove limitations on household registration, or hukou, in towns and small cities and gradually loosen the restrictions in medium-size cities.

Yang Zhiming, vice-minister of human resources and social security, said the reform will be significant in helping migrant workers, who were peasants in rural areas but now live in towns or cities, to better integrate into urban life.

Yang said stable employment is critical for migrant workers to become assimilated into cities and that the government will use various measures to offer more job opportunities.

One-third of migrant workers in China now have skills training subsidized by the government, and the government will strengthen the effort so that most migrant workers will get training by 2020, Yang said.

Yang said the purpose of the training program is to improve migrant workers' employability and turn them into technicians or highly skilled workers.

Yang said the government will also strengthen the development of the service sector, enterprises of small and medium size and labor-intensive industries to create more work opportunities for migrant workers.

According to a circular issued on Wednesday by the State Council, China plans to have 100 million people from rural areas finish their permanent residence registration by 2020.

Migrant workers will be the main body of the population that will be transferred. Official data showed that there were 166 million migrant workers employed in cities and towns away from their documented homes at the end of last year. The figure increased to 174 million as of June.

houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn