China to create over 50m new urban jobs by 2020

BEIJING - China will create over 50 million new urban jobs by 2020, the State Council announced Monday.

The government will improve employment structure and quality, and keep the urban headline unemployment rate under 5 percent by 2020, according to the employment facilitation plan for the 2016-2020 period released by the State Council.

The plan pointed out that employment was key to affecting standards of living and supporting for economic growth, and that China would make proactive employment policies.

China will support sectors that create lots of jobs and promote entrepreneurship, such as businesses related to the sharing economy.

The government will help college graduates, farmers and workers, affected by the country's overcapacity cutting drive, to secure jobs.

The plan also stresses the importance of improving the efficiency of the human resource market and enhancing workers' professional skills and overall quality.

As China successfully withstood challenges in curbing excess capacity, and in industrial upgrading, employment across the country also remained sound and steady in 2016.

Latest figures from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security show that the country managed to create jobs for more than 13 million urban residents in 2016, and the registered unemployment rate in Chinese cities stood at 4.02 percent at the end of 2016.