Last year a total of 11.84 million urban Chinese found
employment. This exceeds the nine million target for the whole
year, Tian Chengping, Minister of Labor and Social
Security, said on Thursday.
This is the first time China has seen the number of newly
employed urban people exceeding 10 million annually, Tian said at a
national meeting on labor and social security in Beijing.
"The employment situation in China has improved a lot in recent
years which will contribute a lot to the overall economic and
social development," said Wang Yadong, deputy head of the training
and employment department of the ministry.
In 2006 about 5.05 million unemployed found new jobs. This is
one percent higher than the original target. The registered
unemployment rate in urban areas was 4.1 percent, indicating a
slight decline.
Last year also saw an increasing number of people purchase
insurance, Tian said. By the end of the year 186 million people had
bought endowment insurance, 157 million medicare, 111 million had
unemployment insurance -- a new high over the past five years --
102 million had insurance for industrial injuries and 64.46 million
bought birth related insurance.
The number of people buying endowment, medicare, industrial
injury and birth related insurance were more than 10 million up in
each category from the previous year, Tian said.
According to official figures 25.38 million migrant workers
bought industrial injury insurance by the end of 2006. This is
12.86 million more than at the end of the previous year. Another
23.67 million migrant workers bought medicare which is up by 18.78
million year-on-year.
(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2007)
