China creates over 66 mln urban jobs in 5 years

China created more than 66 million urban jobs over the past five years, official data showed.

Over the five years, 90 percent of college graduates found jobs and more than 1.1 million redundant workers resulting from the country's excess production capacity cuts were re-employed, said Yin Weimin, minister of human resources and social security.

By the end of 2017, the unemployment rate in urban areas stood at 3.9 percent, the lowest since 2002, official data showed.

From 2013 to 2017, more than 13 million jobs were created each year in urban areas, despite the negative effect of economic structuring and slowing growth, official data showed.

In 2017, 13.51 million new jobs were created in urban areas. The central government set an increase of 11 million jobs as its official target for the whole of 2017.

To ensure stable employment, China has rolled out an array of pro-employment policies for graduates, redundant workers, the disabled and migrant workers.

Yin said China will continue implementing and improving employment and entrepreneurial policies to create more jobs in 2018.

Editor: John Li