Special Report: Global Financial Crisis

    BEIJING, Feb. 9 -- Wuhan City is launching a series of large-scale recruitment interviews to cater for 36,500 migrant workers from the area who lost their jobs due to the financial crisis.

    The capital city of central China's Hubei Province aims to hold at least 7 interview sessions by the end of March this year. They will provide migrant workers with about 100,000 positions from more than 2000 enterprises.

    Xu Liangjun, vice-director of the Wuhan Labor and Society Security Bureau, explains the benefits of this particular recruitment drive.

    SOUNDBITE: Xu said:" There are two main features of the recruitment interviews. The first one is that all the enterprises attending have very high reputations. And secondly, the positions provided are tailored towards migrant workers."

    The vice-director says Wuhan is also making efforts to provide training for migrant workers to encourage them to move into new fields of employment.

    SOUNDBITE: Xu added:" For those migrant workers who want to start their own businesses here, we will provide free training and funds to support their education. We also offer some initial credit to help set up their company."

    A national policy was started on Feb. 2 to promote the growth of new businesses by migrant workers through the allocation of funds and subsidies. The move is intended to curb China's rising unemployment rate.

    The China Economic Monitoring and Analysis Center says rising unemployment has overtaken the economic downturn as the country's biggest challenge in 2009.

    Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Wuhan.

(Source: XHTV)