Equal wages for regular, outsourced employees approved

A draft amendment that requires employers to pay equal wages to regular workers and outsourced employees was passed by the country's top legislature on Friday afternoon.

The amendment also stipulates that employers should strictly limit the number of outsourced workers, stating that the number of outsourced workers should be under a certain proportion of the total workforce.

The move will mostly affect State-owned companies.

China has about 60 million outsourced workers, accounting for almost 20 percent of the country's urban workforce, according to a report released in 2011 by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions.