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Newly employed in urban areas hit 8.51m in first nine months

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-23 21:24

New employment positions filled in China's urban areas hit 8.51 million in the first nine months of 2009, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS) announced Friday.

The figure accounted for 94 percent of the government's annual target of 9 million, ministry spokesman Yin Chengji told a press conference.

"The employment situation has been generally stable this year," Yin said. "It is better than what we had expected."

The number of newly employed people in China's urban areas had reached 900,000 a month since the beginning of the second quarter.

"We predicted that the number for the whole year would top 11 million at yearend," said Yin.

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During the first nine months, 4.02 million laid-off workers found new jobs, accounting for 80 percent of the government's target of 5 million for the whole year.

By the end of the third quarter, 9.15 million people had registered as unemployed in urban areas, a rate of about 4.3 percent, unchanged from the number reported at the end of the second quarter.

"We are confident that the rate will still be at the present level at the end of this year," said Yin.

He said that 74 percent of the 6.11 million new graduates from the country's universities and colleges had been employed as of September 1, which was moderately higher than the ratio from a year earlier.

The government has resorted to a series of measures to help college graduates find jobs, such as giving them preference in military recruitment and encouraging them to take grass-roots posts in the countryside and relatively poor western regions.

Yin called for the continued implementation of a three-year employment project launched in April to offer internships to a total of 1 million graduates, providing a transitional period before they started career-related jobs.

The economic recovery had eased severe unemployment situation of migrant workers.

"We thought that the employment situation for migrant workers was generally stable," said Yin.

An MHRSS study of 250 Chinese villages showed that, by the end of September, the number of migrant workers in cities was 94 percent of the number at the same time last year, said Yin.

The central government has been urging local governments to offer free training for unemployed migrant workers to help them find new jobs or start businesses in their hometowns.