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House prices 'harming building of harmony'

By Zhao Huanxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-01-30 10:45

"It is hardly possible for Beijing to create so many jobs for them," Dai said, adding that if they stay in the capital, a large portion of them will join the jobless ranks.

Beijing's registered unemployment rate was 2.11 percent last year, but experts believed the actual jobless rate was far higher, and at least one-third of the jobless were aged below 35, according to Dai.

"The unemployment issue would be further complicated if youngsters with higher education couldn't be employed," Gao said. "This will further add uncertainties to the social harmony and stability."

College and university students aside, Beijing had a 3.6 million migrant population at the end of 2005, or nearly one-fourth of the city's total.

They brought with them 400,000 school-aged children. The figure represented more than one-fourth of the city's total number of elementary and high school students, according to Dai's report.

About 100,000 of the children are attending schools not approved by the government, Dai said.

"The municipal government must guarantee that the children of the migrant workers can get better compulsory education in Beijing, as this is the right of the migrant workers who have contributed so much to (the development of) the capital," Dai said.

Doing a good job in education will lend solid support to the development of the underdeveloped regions, from which the migrant workers come from, he said.

                                                                    (China Daily 01/30/2007 page12)