China's 13th Five-Year Plan for socio-economic development included special career training for those with disabilities, which has so far helped more than 1.6 million people find jobs.

Silent Express is a delivery firm in Shanghai. It receives outsourced work from larger delivery firms and most of its employees have impaired hearing.

One of them is 24-year-old Yin Yedong, who started work just two months ago. Before this, he worked with a factory for less pay. Last month, he was paid nearly 8,000 yuan ($1,225).

"Other firms usually employ the healthy, and they wouldn't talk to me or have anything to do with me. It was really hard," said Yin.

Some 100 staff work for Silent Express, and most of them are hearing-impaired except for several administrators. They notify customers of upcoming packages via text messages.

It usually takes two or more days to train a hearing-impaired delivery man, and well-trained staff can deliver as many as 300 packages on busy days, which is comparable to a regular worker in the industry.

"There is a lack of workplaces where the hearing-impaired or people with physical disabilities can work, but there are a lot of things they can do. Delivery work doesn't have academic requirements and the salary is much higher than a factory job," said Jiang Ye, Manager at Silent Express.

There are some 85 million people with disabilities in China, and the government and private firms have been thinking about ways to include them in the workforce.

As of the end of October, China has provided skills training to more than 2 million people with disabilities.

In a classroom in downtown Shanghai, students who are mostly hearing-impaired learn how to make coffee. These lessons are offered free to students by a private company working with the local government.

"Barista is a suitable job for the hearing-impaired. I can't hear anything but making coffee only requires handwork, and we can all do that," said Chen Lulei, a student.

Coffee training provider Chang Delong has taught hundreds of disabled students to make coffee, and most of them managed to find jobs after.

But there's still a long way to go in providing employment to those with disabilities.

Silent Express has been working with disabled persons for years and its founder says business and government should be working more closely to make working environments more inclusive.

"In addition to the help from private companies, the government should also encourage other organizations to come up with special jobs for the disabled," said Gu Zhong, adding "hearing-impaired people, for example, understand and approach things differently than we do. So they have many problems finding a job, and we need to come up with jobs that fit them better."