Beijing will work to keep its surveyed urban unemployment rate under 5% in 2021 by creating nonagricultural employment opportunities for approximately 30,000 rural workforces. The plan was announced during a video conference on Thursday about the city's 2021 employment arrangements.

The conference centered around the 14th Five-Year Plan and the government's employment-driven economic growth scheme. It sets a series of key targets for 2021 regarding workforces in urban and rural areas, creating jobs via entrepreneurial activities, as well as supporting new types of jobs and flexible employment.

To encourages surplus laborers to transfer out of crop farming into non-farm jobs, Beijing plans to strengthen coordinated support efforts across the city's districts to create more public service jobs, especially in suburban areas. So far, over 18,000 new rural workers have taken jobs in drainage, public transportation, sanitation, landscaping, and other sectors which help maintain the city's operations.

According to the Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, the city will work to increase rural workforces' income by improving their occupational skills. It will also promote the industrial development of agricultural areas so as to help rural residents find jobs in places close to their homes.

There will also be growing opportunities in digital farming, agritourism, and forest economics this year, and new types of agricultural businesses will be fostered to provide stable jobs with high added value for rural workforces. Meanwhile, workers' rights and interests will be better protected by relevant authorities as the city continues to implement employment policies and services between its urban and rural areas.

In addition, policies will be introduced in Beijing to support flexible employment, encourage the creation of new types of jobs, and the protection of workforces' interests. The city plans to continuously provide social insurance and subsidies for flexible employees with financial difficulties, increase funding to support flexible employment and public service jobs, and provide public employment services to flexible employees.

Currently, the number of flexible employees who pay social insurance in Beijing stands at around 660,000.

In 2020, Beijing prioritized the policies of "six stabilizations" and "six guarantees." A total of 148.24 billion yuan in social insurance was either reduced or exempted last year, while 4.76 billion yuan of unemployment insurance was granted to businesses. Meanwhile, companies in Beijing received some 7.27 billion yuan in subsidies, effectively helping them resume work and production amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

All of these incentives helped to create some 261,000 urban new jobs in the city in 2020. By the end of the year, the surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 4.1% and a total of 742,000 urban and rural workers who had previously encountered employment difficulties had found jobs.

The city's Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and 31 other municipal government bodies will make additional efforts to improve the quality of employment, tackle structural unemployment, provide basic employment support, and improve their working mechanisms in a bid to keep the city's surveyed urban unemployment rate below 5% this year.

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