The average salary of private sector workers in China's urban areas rose by 14 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis to 28,752 yuan ($4,681) per year in 2012, while the real average salary in the non-private sector increased by 9 percent to 46,769 yuan last year, according to statistics published Friday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The growth rate of the real average salary in urban areas was slightly higher than in 2011, when the average real salary in the private sector saw 12.3 percent growth, with an 8.5 percent rise in non-private sector real wages.

Despite the faster salary growth, the average annual salary of employees in the private sector of urban areas last year only accounted for just 61.5 percent of wages earned by staff in the non-private sector, mainly at State-owned companies.

Lin Xinqi, director of the Human Resources Department of Renmin University of China, told the Global Times Friday that it is not easy for private companies to recruit talented staff nowadays, given the big salary gap with the non-private sector.

However, "the private sector provides more jobs, so salaries in the sector should increase," Lin noted.

The major reason for the gap is that most State-owned companies are in monopolized industries, said Tian Yun, an economist at the China Society of Macroeconomics under the National Development and Reform Commission.

Tian noted that the government should further open up the monopolized sectors to private companies, so that they can also take a share.

The NBS said in the Friday statement that 25 provinces have raised the legal minimum wage in 2012, with an average increase of 20.2 percent.

Labor costs in China will increase further as the country's price levels continue to rise, and private companies' intentions to hire may be further dampened amid the slow economic growth, said Lin.

Despite the reported increase in salaries, some residents in urban areas still complain that they are not earning enough.