Work training programs to be renewed

Campaign will help nation become skilled manufacturing powerhouse

The working skills training campaign, which has helped relieve the structural imbalance of the job market, will continue for another five years.

Proposed by four central government bodies including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Education, the plan for working skills improvement over the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period has been approved by the State Council, aiming to build the nation into a manufacturing powerhouse supported by skilled talent.

According to the action plan, the government will arrange for more workers to join skill training courses with targeted attendance reaching over 75 million by 2025, among whom 30 million should be migrant workers.

Evaluation of workers should be improved over the period.

The action plan said that it aims to encourage 40 million people to get their certificates and over 8 million people to get the title of senior engineers or senior workers by 2025.

Liu Kang, director of the occupational capacity department under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said at a news conference on Friday that the government will make efforts to create a more friendly social environment for the workers in the next few years.

“We are working to improve workers’ promotional channels and evaluation systems. For example, we will assess the workers’ performance in multiple dimensions, from working capacity, spirit of craftsmanship and professional ethnics. The evaluation system will be connected to their salary,” he said.

He added that the central department will help improve the payment of skilled workers by guiding the companies to set up a balanced payment system catering to skilled workers and giving outstanding skilled workers incentives and financial bonuses.

However, the implementation of the skills improvement campaign may still face some problems in the near future, Tang Tao, vice-minister of human resources and social security, said at the news conference.

He said that the trained skilled workers may fail to live up to the demands of upgraded industries, and the working skills of some key groups like migrant workers and college graduates may not reach the employers’ expectations.

“We still have a rather weak base for skills training so far, as we cannot offer that many training courses, and the quality of the courses should be improved,” he said.

“Also, we need to improve the people’s view of skilled workers to get them to show more respect for labor work and jobs requiring skills.”

According to the ministry, nearly 100 million people attended skills training courses during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period.

So far, the nation has over 200 million skilled workers, among whom 50 million are highly skilled.