China provided 9.7 million new jobs for urban residents in 2005, making the total employment population hit 760 million, a spokesman with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MLSS) said in Beijing on Thursday.

 

By the end of 2005, China recorded a 760 working population, with an increase of 40 million over that of five years ago. More than 180 million workers laid off from state-owned enterprises got reemployed, said spokesman Hu Xiaoyi at a press conference.

 

Last year, he said, the number of people without jobs stood at 8.39 million, with a registered unemployment rate of 4.2 percent.

 

"This is the third consecutive year China has achieved government's goal of employment and reemployment targets," said Hu.

 

Meanwhile, China has established its basic social security systems backed up by insurance funds to ensure smooth transitions during China's social and economic changes.

 

The social insurance funds, including pension, unemployment, medical-care, work injury and maternity insurance, reached 700 billion yuan (US$87.5 billion) in 2005, with 540 billion yuan (US$70 billion) paid to beneficiaries, the spokesman said.

 

From 2001 to 2005, enterprise retirees received 1.5876 trillion yuan (US$198.45 billion) in basic pension, a rise of 803.2 billion yuan (US$100.4 billion), or 103 percent, from the previous five years.

 

At the end of 2005, China's endowment insurance service covered 174.44 million, up 38.26 million, or 28 percent, from at the end of 2000.

 

As for the unemployment insurance, the medical care, maternity insurance, and the work injury insurance, the number of participants have all increased, as well as the pool of insurance funds, according to the MLSS.

 

Hu therefore vowed that the government would take three years to have all businesses, construction firms in particular, to sign labor contracts with all of their employees to protect their due rights, given the facts that during the first three quarters of last year, over 230,000 labor dispute cases were raised involving 560,000 laborers and 90 percent of them were settled, he said.

 

(Xinhua New Agency January 20, 2006)