On May 29, 2022, the Shanghai Municipal People's Government issued a circular on The Action Plan of Shanghai Municipality for Accelerating Economic Recovery and Revitalization, unveiling 50 policy measures that were drawn up to help enterprises to overcome their difficulties, as well as to speed up economic recovery and revitalization. These 50 policy measures not only aim to accelerate economic recovery and revitalization, but also take into account the comprehensive needs of livelihood safeguard and anti-epidemic work, so as to better safeguard Shanghai's full return to normal production and living. Among these measures, "stabilizing employment, absorbing college graduates, improving skills, safeguarding supply, and retaining talented minds" are the key words.

Providing subsidies from the perspective of assisting enterprises and stabilizing jobs so as to safeguard employment and absorb college graduates. The current round of Covid resurgence in Shanghai has hugely impacted enterprises which are main players in the market, which has in turned immensely affected social employment. To help enterprises is to safeguard employment per se, which is the only way to stabilize the fundamentals of economic and social development. According to the 50 policy measures, enterprises that do not lay off workers or make fewer layoffs in the seven industries of catering, retail, tourism, transportation, culture, sports and entertainment, accommodation, and exhibition may apply within the year for job stabilization subsidies from the human resources and social security bureaus of their local districts where they are registered. Based on the number of urban workers for whom social insurance premiums were paid as required in the previous month when the application for subsidy is made, a standard rate of RMB600 per worker will be provided to support enterprises to stabilize and retain their work posts. Support will also be provided for the employment of unemployed people, college graduates and members of other key social groups. Enterprises and social organizations that recruit people who have a registered period of unemployment of more than three months between March and December 2022 or college students who graduate in 2022 in Shanghai, sign labor contracts of over one year with them and pay social insurance premiums for them as required will be given a one-time employment subsidy of RMB2,000 per employee. All districts may formulate their own employment stabilization subsidy policies in light of their specific situations.

Strengthening public employment services and supporting flexible work systems, entrepreneurship tax incentives and other subsidies. Due to the pandemic, many enterprises are facing the problem of short-term manpower shortage. The shared manpower use, flexible work system and other innovative measures put forward in the 50 policy measures can concurrently solve enterprises' dual contradiction between short-term manpower shortage and job stabilization, while strengthening the monitoring and service of flexible employment. Shanghai will optimize online and offline service measures and strive to leverage public recruitment platforms and other service carriers to provide precise employment services for both employers and job seekers. Greater support will be provided for college graduates to pursue entrepreneurship and implement entrepreneurship tax incentives, subsidies and other support policies, as well as internship subsidies and one-time job-hunting and entrepreneurship subsidies for college graduates. In addition, Shanghai will also install a pilot scheme to provide safeguards against occupational injuries to employees who work in new forms of employment, and carry out effective work in the advance payment of wages in arrears, so as to stabilize and expand employment.

Taping into the employment potential through multiple channels to solve employment difficulties facing college graduates. College graduates are the top priority in employment promotion work. Through ''Government Online-Offline Shanghai'', the employment procedures for college graduates will be simplified to improve the efficiency of employment services. Shanghai will encourage qualified state-owned enterprises to create new jobs and support public institutions with spare staffing quotas to appropriately increase their recruitments, while developing community public welfare jobs through government procurement. Enterprises, grassroots units, government agencies and institutions are encouraged to absorb college graduates. Enterprises that meet the requirements and recruit fresh college graduates in Shanghai will be given RMB7,800 in tax reduction or exemption per person per year according to their actual number of recruits over a period of 3 years. Efforts will be made to increase the recruitment of community and public health post workers and community post workers, encourage all districts to recruit and keep in store outstanding teachers in primary and secondary schools, and attract more college graduates to work in a ''recruit-and-store'' manner.

Increasing subsidies for vocational skills training and improving the work skills of employees. Structural employment difficulties in the post-Covid period are prominent problems, which include the mismatch between job demand and job supply, and the contradiction between job seekers and job information availability. The idea of increasing training subsidies put forward in the 50 policy measures has become a hot policy. All enterprises, social organizations and other employers affected by the pandemic will get a subsidiary of RMB600 per trainee per time when they provide their employees with various types of online vocational training related to their prime businesses. Workers who have obtained vocational qualification certificates and vocational skills competency certificates for skilled personnel are entitled to subsidies for vocational skills improvement. Support will be provided for vocational colleges to file and set up vocational skills competency evaluation agencies to provide services for graduating students, and those certified students will be entitled to vocational skills improvement subsidies. Recently, the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau has included the national vocational qualification certificates for skilled personnel closely related to work safety, public safety, personal health, and life and property safety in the scope of vocational skills improvement subsidies.

Improving livelihood safeguard from the perspective of consumption and supply, and increasing assistance to social groups in need. During the current round of Covid resurgence, certain problems of material supply and safeguard have been exposed. Targeting these problems, the 50 policy measures specifically call for efforts to speed up the planning and construction of a number of large suburban warehousing bases that integrate warehousing, sorting, processing, packaging and other functions into one body, and promote the construction of emergency material reserve bases. Besides, community lockdowns during the current round of Covid resurgence have also made it imperative to optimize supplies at the terminal link. To this end, the 50 policy measures have called for the optimal layout of community livelihood and consumption service complexes, while setting the work goal of ''safeguarding basic supplies, achieving full coverage'' and vigorously promoting the maximum opening of all outlets and nodes and the maximum return of all supply safeguard personnel to return to their posts. Targeting the problems exposed by the pandemic, the 50 policy measures also propose to strengthen the price monitoring and market supervision of important livelihood commodities, and conscientiously carry out work to safeguard the supply and stabilize the prices of livelihood materials. In addition, responding to the call of the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Finance, Shanghai will issue one-time subsidies and temporary allowances to low-income earners and extremely impoverished people, pay attention to price changes, promptly provide social assistance, and provide temporary price subsidies on time. For uninsured persons who are seriously affected by the pandemic, one-time temporary allowances will be issued to them if they are not on minimum social security.

Comprehensively implementing talent plans and policies to attract and retain all kinds of talented minds. In the post-Covid period, Shanghai needs to closely follow up with the mobility of various types of talented minds and rebuild their confidence in the economic and social development of the city. The 50 policy measures call for implementing various talent plans and policies, optimizing the requirements for talented minds in respect of direct settlement, change of residence permit to permanent residence registration and housing purchase, intensifying the attraction, service and support of overseas talented minds, speeding up the implementation of the housing security program for talented minds, improving educational, medical and other services, deepening the innovation and entrepreneurship activities of the Shanghai Attracts Talents Program to further attract and retain various types of talented minds.

Other support policies. To better support the restoration of normal production and life in Shanghai, in terms of transport in the city, the whole network of ground bus and rail transit in the city has resumed basic operations, while roaming taxis and online taxi hailing services have all resumed normal operation. Except for medium- and high-risk areas, locked-down areas and precautionary areas, private cars and institutional vehicles can now operate normally. As for outbound transport, railway operations and passenger flows have basically returned to normal. A "one plan for one route" is now adopted for inter-provincial road passenger transport, with route opening gradually restored through consultation. Domestic flights to Shanghai have also gradually resumed. The living service industry has started to resume offline operations, while various cultural, tourism and sports venues are opening again in an orderly manner. Parks are also opening, with proper visitor flow restriction and staggering schedules, and Class A outdoor tourist attractions have started orderly opening step by step. As for educational services, schools are resuming normal campus study in different stages, with prioritized return arranged for Grades Two and Three high school students and Grade Three junior high school students. Other primary and secondary school students will continue online study until the end of this semester. All government service windows are re-opening in an orderly manner, and staff of all Party and government organs and institutions except those living in medium- and high-risk areas, locked-down areas and precautionary areas have returned to normal work.



Author: Li Jian, Research Professor, Institute of Urban and Demographic Studies, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences