The municipal government aims to help 20,000 unemployed workers under the age of 35 find jobs this year, a human resources official said Wednesday at a press conference.

The program, which was launched in 2012, is the centerpiece of a government initiative to tackle the city's youth unemployment problem.

Unemployed residents under 35 made up 26.5 percent of the city's registered unemployed population last year, amounting to roughly 268,000 people, according to the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau. The figures only include residents with local household registration, so they don't account any of the city's unemployed migrants.

The primary problem in the labor market is that many unemployed young people don't have the degrees and qualifications that companies need, said Zhang Dezhi, director of the employment and unemployment security division from the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau.

The bureau plans to meet its goal by collecting information about unemployed residents so it can connect them with open positions in the city. This year, it will send out more than 500 social workers to 210 communities and neighborhoods to do surveys, so that it can understand the needs of the unemployed youth.

In addition, local human resources agencies will recommend young people to companies, which will then be responsible to train them for the skills they need. "It is better that they train young people in a specific skill that the company needs and then let them try out for the job as interns," Zhang said.

The bureau believes the program helped lead to a drop last year in the number of unemployed people under the age of 35.

The figure fell to about 71,000 last year, down from roughly 80,000 in 2011, according to the bureau.

Zhang believes that the actual number of unemployed may be higher because many young people don't register with government agencies when they are out of work.

Still, Zhang acknowledged that the government can only do so much. The problem with unemployed young people in Shanghai is that most are unwilling to go to other cities and provinces to find work, which is common for young people in other provinces, he said.

About 41 percent of Shanghai's unemployed youth have a higher education, an increase from 37 percent in 2011, Zhang said.

"The reason why more young people with a higher education are unemployed is that the overall education level has risen in recent years," Zhang told the Global Times. "It also seems that the more education a person has, the pickier he becomes when looking for work."