CHINA: Unemployment is becoming a serious problem...

CHINA: Unemployment is becoming a serious problem for the Beijing government as millions abandon farming and migrate to China’s major cities in search of work. Under economic reform measures adopted over the past 12 years, farmers have been free to leave collective farms. Since the reforms were initiated, more than one-fifth of China’s rural work force has abandoned farming to search for other work, officials said last week. The rural work force in 1990 was 420 million. China’s official unemployment rate was 2.6% last year. But jobless rural workers are not included in the figure.