The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak deprived eight percent of workers from rural areas of their jobs in urban areas, according to a recent report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

Economists from CASS called for close attention to the unemployment caused by SARS in a report on China's post-SARS economy.

Statistics show that about 90 million farmers are working in cities currently and nearly 10 million returned home during the SARS outbreak.

The industry suffering most severely from SARS is the service industry, the major source of employment in China. The epidemic also reduced the income of peasants and laid-off workers substantially, which will exert serious influence on the total income of rural residents, the report said.

The effect will spread to the manufacturing industry if the weak demands from the service industry and the dropping increase of urban residents's income are not curbed timely, the report said.

The spread of SARS brought fresh difficulties for China to create new jobs. Statistics show that the pressure of unemployment has already been growing in China in recent years along with the enlarging labor force and reform of state-owned enterprises.

The Chinese government anticipates an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent for 2003, 0.5 percentage point more than that of 2002. The State Council said in a report released in May that it had a tough task of creating over eight million jobs this year.

Statistics show that 24 million new jobs are needed in 2003 in China, including for 10 million new labors in urban areas, six million laid-off workers from state- and collectively-owned enterprises, and eight million registered jobless people, but there are only 10 million new job opportunities. (more) nnnn

To compound the situation, there are another 100 million employable laborers in the countryside.

SARS will have a profound influence on employment and workers' income across the country, and will lead to an adjustment in job distribution to some extent, the report said.

CASS economists urged the government to save enterprises in difficulty by reducing taxes and fees and other measures, and to offer necessary financial aid to some special industries and enterprises to ensure an increased income for workers in various fields.

In the past, many local governments focused mainly on growth of gross domestic product in their economic work, but it is important that they should now pay more attention to various social objectives while promoting economic growth, the economists said.

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