Economic slowdown bites China's employment

BEIJING - China's job market is feeling the pressure from the country's economic downshift, as new job growth slows and more people become unemployed, a senior employment official said Monday.

"The impact of economic slowdown on the job market is starting to emerge," said Vice-Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Yang Zhiming at a press conference on the sidelines of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which opened on November 8.

The growth of newly added jobs in cities has been narrowing since April, while job vacancies have dropped with higher registered unemployed number, Yang said.

"China will continue to face the problem of labor oversupply for a long time," he told reporters.

China's job market is under great pressure this year as nearly 7 million college graduates have entered the job market, while migrant workers and unemployed urbanites still have difficulty getting full employment, said Yang.

China's urban registered unemployment rate stood at 4.1 percent at the end of September, unchanged from the second quarter of 2012, according to official figures. It was lower than the officially set ceiling of 4.6 percent this year.

The country created 10.24 million new jobs in urban areas in the first nine months, exceeding the annual target of 9 million for this year.

Yang said the government will boost labor-intensive industries as well as strategic emerging industries to bring job growth along with economic development.

He said the government will encourage college students to work in the central-western regions or start their own businesses, facilitate the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises and offer better training for rural workers.