A special campus job fair held at Zhenjiang Vocational Technical College on June 2, 2022, aiming to boost employment of new graduates and facilitate the resumption of work for local companies. Photo: IC

Fostering youth employment stands on top of the to-do list for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, with the implementation of multiple supportive policies viewed as critical to easing the youth unemployment situation, an official with the ministry said on Thursday. 

Zhang Ying, a ministry official in charge of fostering employment, made the remark while answering a question on youth employment. China's youth jobless rate hit a record high of 19.9 percent in July, fresh data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on August 15.

Youth employment tracks those aged between 16 and 24 years old.

Zhang said special measures targeting youth employment including encouragement and subsidies for companies to take on young people, tax and fee cuts, supporting entrepreneurship and flexible employment, as well as guidance to help college graduates to find jobs and vocational training. 

There are also special guidance programs in place targeting young people who remain jobless for an extended period and engagement with graduates form poverty-stricken family who are jobless on a one-on-one basis, providing them with job information and internship opportunities. 

Other measures include a crackdown on employment discrimination, illegal job brokers, fake employment and streamlining administrative procedures.

At the press conference on Thursday, the ministry said that China has kept unemployment low, and maintained surveyed urban unemployment at below a preset target over the past decade.

On average, over 13 million urban jobs were added each year during the period between 2012-21, data from the ministry showed on Thursday.

Faced with the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic and the disruption from China-US economic and trade frictions, stabilizing employment has been the top government agenda, the ministry said, noting that as the world's largest developing country, the long-term pressure and structural contradictions over employment issues still post prominent challenges facing the country.

China added 130 million people into its domestic work force and has built the world's largest functioning social security network over the past decade, according to the ministry. The number of skilled workers in China has surpassed 200 million. 

Basic pension funds are guaranteed to be able to be disbursed on time and in full, an official with ministry noted, due to balanced revenue and expenditure, ample reserves and support from central government. And unemployment insurance rebate program has paid 39.7 billion yuan ($5.79 billion) back to a total of 6.67 million companies during the first seven months of this year.