Beijing municipality will offer subsidies to enterprises if they recruit unemployed middle-aged workers.

The highest annual subsidy will amount to nearly ten thousand yuan, or 1,500 US dollars, for each recruit. That means the more middle-aged people companies hire, the more subsides they will get from the government.

A commentary in the China Youth Daily says the move is not conducive to reducing unemployment, although the government's objective is reasonable.

The article says the measure will encourage employers to only recruit middle-aged people in efforts to obtain government subsidies. As a result, younger job seekers will find it more difficult to land jobs. Therefore, the objective of reducing unemployment won't be met.

Moreover, the newspaper points out the measure will even bring no benefits to the middle-aged workers. It says some enterprises may fire their current middle-aged employees and re-employ them just to get subsidies. What's worse, the government has no counter-measure if enterprises lay off their newly-recruited middle-aged workers after they get the subsidy.

The newspaper argues that the government should give subsidies directly to unemployed middle-aged people. It concludes by saying that the government should adopt more flexible policies to reduce unemployment within the middle aged population.