China to lay off five to six million workers earmarks at least 23 billion
Date
3/3/2016 11:08:10 PM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula) File photo of a laborer welding part of the structure of a ship which is under construction at the Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding company's shipyard in Shanghai. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
BY BENJAMIN KANG LIM MATTHEW MILLER AND DAVID STANWAY
BEIJING:China aims to lay off 5-6 million state workers over the next two to three years as part of efforts to curb industrial overcapacity and pollution two reliable sources said Beijing's boldest retrenchment program in almost two decades.
China's leadership obsessed with maintaining stability and making sure redundancies do not lead to unrest will spend nearly 150 billion yuan ($23 billion) to cover layoffs in just the coal and steel sectors in the next 2-3 years.
The overall figure is likely to rise as closures spread to other industries and even more funding will be required to handle the debt left behind by "zombie" state firms.
The term refers to companies that have shut down some of their operations but keep staff on their rolls since local governments are worried about the social and economic impact of bankruptcies and unemployment.
Shutting down "zombie firms" has been identified as one of the government's priorities this year with China's Premier Li Keqiang promising in December that they would soon "go under the knife"..
The government plans to lay off five million workers in industries suffering from a supply glut one source with ties to the leadership said.
A second source with leadership ties put the number of layoffs at six million. Both sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media about the politically sensitive subject for fear of sparking social unrest.
The ministry of industry did not immediately respond when asked for comment on the reports.
The hugely inefficient state sector employed around 37 million people in 2013 and accounts for about 40 percent of the country's industrial output and nearly half of its bank lending.
It is China's most significant nationwide retrenchment since the restructuring of state-owned enterprises from 1998 to 2003 led to around 28 million redundancies and cost the central government about 73.1 billion yuan ($11.2 billion) in resettlement funds.
On Monday Yin Weimin the minister for human resources and social security said China expects to lay off 1.8 million workers in the coal and steel industries but he did not give a timeframe.
China aims to cut capacity gluts in as many as seven sectors including cement glassmaking and shipbuilding but the oversupplied solar power industry is likely to be spared any large-scale restructuring because it still has growth potential the first source said.
REUTERS