If this is the case, 7,975,000 more job opportunities, compared to the 1990 level, need to be created. The respective situations in urban and rural areas are as follows.
(1) The rural villages in the three northeast provinces have long been of a single agricultural structure. Increases of labor force were constrained by the fixed areas of farmland, and were not sufficiently used as labor resources. Many of the labor force have moved from agriculture to non-agricultural industries since the reform of the rural economy system, especially by the implementation of household-based contract production. Nonetheless, those rural villages still hold an enormous amount of excess labor force. According to a survey of rural villages in 10 prefectures counties of 8 provinces, the proportion of the excess labor force in agriculture is about 40%. The labor force in the rural areas in the three provinces in 1990 amounted to 19,533,000 or 43.5% of the total labor force. The combined farmland area of the three provinces is 24,358,000 Mu.4) If farming machines are introduced in the farmlands, of which the per-capita area is estimated to be 12.47 Mu, only 12,179,000 heads of labor force would be sufficient. In that case, the rest 7,357,000, would be excess labor force.
(2) The problem of the unemployed in urban areas is also obvious. The number of unemployed people in the three provinces in 1990 was about 900,000. Jilin Province alone currently has 200,000 of the unemployed, since those born in the 1960s and 1970s all belong to the productive-age population. However, the Government can only provide 40,000 people with job opportunities every year. During the eighth 5-year plan period (1991-1995), an dditional 1.10 million joined the productive-age group, which means that the additional population available for employment, excluding students, etc., was 150,000 to 160,000 each year.
