The State Development and Reform Commission has recently issued an analytical report giving an overview of and making suggestions about the employment, income distribution and social security situation for the first half of the year. The report shows that during this period, college graduates and superfluous workforce in rural areas face a difficult situation in finding a job. It also shows that low-income earners, mostly farmers and city dwellers living on government subsidies, are under greater living pressure.

In the report, experts rules out the possibility that overproduction capacity might lead to large unemployment.

The report indicates that from January to June, the employed population increased by 6.08 million in urban areas, accounting for 67% of the 9,000,000 employment goal set for the whole year and hitting a record high. Meanwhile, unemployment rate in urban areas remained at 4.2%, equaling the rate of last year. Employment demand for college graduates still fell far behind their relative growth. Without preferential policies, middle school graduates also faced a problem in job hunting and conflicts still existed in employment structure.

Statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture showed that during the first half of the year, 114.23 million farmers went out to work in large cities, 6 million more than last year. However, the report points out that the trend would not continue. Since related service system, management system and working scheme for these farmers have not been well set up, and farmers' work capability is still at a low level, the increasing trend of farmers going out to work in cities will slow down during the second half of the year.

Information from the State Statistics Bureau discloses that during the first half of the year, the per capita cash income for farmers was 1,797 yuan, increasing by 11.9% compared with last year, and the rate of increase dropped by 0.6%.

Since food prices and prices of animal products will continue to drop, and prices of major agricultural production materials might continue to go up, it might be difficult for farmers to increase their income. At the same time, few policies are available to help farmers in this aspect. Therefore the rate of increase for farmers' per capita cash income will probably slow down during the second half of the year.
 
Editor: Yan