Job hunters participate in a job fair in Haikou, South China's Hainan Province on August 12, 2023. The positions offered at the fair included business services, network engineering and social media operation. Photo: VCG

In the first nine months of 2023, a total of 10.22 million new urban jobs had been created in China, supported by pro-growth policies focusing on employment, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said on Thursday during a regular press conference.

In the first three quarters of the year, the ministry announced policies to achieve a phased reduction in the jobless and work-related injury insurance premiums and higher one-time subsidies for job expansion activities, which helped reduce the costs of businesses by 141.9 billion yuan ($19.4 billion). 

The ministry spent 80.9 billion yuan to subsidize employment, it said.

In order to help people find jobs, China launched large-scale vocational training courses. 

As of the end of September, the human resources ministry had issued 8.99 million vocational training vouchers, and it continued to subsidize skills upgrading. It also provided subsidized vocational skills training courses for more than 13 million people.

In recent months, China has introduced more targeted measures to maintain employment stability and boost job creation, with employment increasingly viewed as a top priority of government work to ensure people's livelihoods and maintain the economic recovery. 

Stable employment is essential for raising household wealth through increasing incomes, which in turn stimulates consumer demand and drives sustainable economic growth, analysts said.

The effect of those measures has gradually emerged. For example, the policies helped small and medium-sized enterprises create more jobs in the first nine months of this year, according to the ministry.

The ministry has also stepped up employment assistance, opened special channels for the unemployed to find jobs, and recommended jobs more accurately. From January to September, a total of 3.96 million unemployed people found jobs, and 1.29 million people in difficulties found jobs.

As of the end of September, 32.97 million people who had been lifted out of poverty entered the work force.

The surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 5.0 percent in September, the ministry noted.

In the first three quarters of this year, the average surveyed urban unemployment rate was 5.3 percent. But the jobless rate in September dropped meaningfully, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on October 18.

Global Times