A new regulation on the employment policy of China's public institutions is taking effect on July 1.
Over 30-million people in some 1-million government-sponsored institutions are no longer secured with permanent job offers.
Yin Weimin is the Minister of Human Resources and Social Security. He says this is so far the most significant move in the reform of labour force management in China.
"To define the relation between public institutions and their employees as a 'contractual' or terminable, is a major step forward. The new regulation helps to establish an employment scheme based on terminable contracts, encourage fair competition, bring both incentives and restraints, and better protect employees' rights."
Yin adds that the new scheme aims to optimize the recruitment and promotion procedure in public institutions, which means those permanent workers could also get laid off.
Previously, permanent employees in public institutions were not included in the social welfare system, but their wage and benefits are considered as much more favorable than those in ordinary enterprises.
Analysts say this reform should be based on a fair and inclusive social welfare system, so that the once permanent staff members need not worry if they get laid off.
According to the new regulation, employees in public institutions will be covered by the social welfare system.
But Wu Jiang, Director of the Chinese Academy of Personnel Science, says the paper did not lay out how it is going to proceed.
"Welfare scheme for the public institution is in parallel with the national social welfare system. The new regulation has just pointed out a general direction for the next move. But it did not have specific explanation on how the two schemes will be merged."
In fact, many cities in China have started their trial programs since 2002. So far, over 90-percent of those once permanent employees in public institutions across the country have signed terminable contracts with their employers.
For CRI, I'm Cao Yuwei.
