BEIJING, Sept. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- China's President Jiang Zemin expressed special concern for laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises, at a national working conference on re-employment held in Beijing on Thursday.

¡¡¡¡Workers laid off from state-owned enterprises had contributed to nation building and solving their job problems should be the most important task of the entire employment focus, Jiang, who is also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), stressed at the conference.

¡¡¡¡He said it was "an unshirkable responsibility of all levels ofthe CPC, the government and the whole of society" to solve the re-employment problem for these workers well.

¡¡¡¡He also urged all levels of the Party and the government to devote more will, energy and resources to achieving overall re-employment goals.

¡¡¡¡Employment in China would remain an important issue over a longperiod owing to the gap between work opportunities and an oversupply of labour and the quality of some workers, Jiang pointed out.

¡¡¡¡He said China faced a variety of employment problems, includingjob pressure in urban areas and surplus rural labor force moving to the towns. The crux of all these problems was the re-employmentof laid-off workers, which had become a major issue with bearing on China's overall economic and social situation.

¡¡¡¡The conference was convened by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. Other top-ranking leaders Zhu Rongji, Li Ruihuan, Hu Jintao, Wei Jianxing and Li Lanqing, all members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), also attended the conference. Enditem