At a news conference held by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security of China on April 25, a spokesman said that the employment situation in the first quarter is better than in the previous year. There have been 2.67 million new jobs created in cities and towns, 30 percent of the target for the whole year. Some 1.2 million people have been made redundant were re-employed, 24 percent of the target for the year.

Statistics for supply and demand on the labor market in China's 103 cities in the first quarter shows that employment units had 3.385 million different job vacancies while there were approximately 3.47 million job seekers. The ratio of supply to demand was 0.98. The difficulty of obtaining a job has fallen to the lowest in six years. Among all job-seekers, the unemployed comprised 54.1 percent. The demand for highly-skilled personnel exceeds supply. The supply and demand ratio for senior technical officers, technical officers and senior engineers is 3.36, 2.2 and 2.07. There is a large demand for workers in such areas as cold machining, electronic component manufacturing, and restaurant services.

By People's Daily Online