According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the number of new jobs in urban areas was 12.93 million in the first 11 months of this year, up 130,000 year-on-year. The target of adding 11 million jobs in urban areas has been surpassed.

And the unemployment rate in November was 4.8 percent, representing a decrease of 0.1 percentage points from October and from the same period in 2017.

This year, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council released a series of policies to promote employment through entrepreneurship and innovation, job-hunting assistance and services, and employment security, in an effort to stabilize the employment market, said Li Xiru, an official from NBS.

From the perspective of employment age, the working-age population of 25 to 59 was the main force participating in social and economic activities, and its unemployment rate continued to stay at 4.4 percent. The employment situation of university graduates performed better than in previous years. The unemployment rate for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher aged 20 to 24 dropped by 1.8 percentage points from October, and by 2.1 percentage points year-to-year.

From the employment structure, the proportion of the tertiary industry in GDP continued to rise. The number of employment in urban private enterprises and individual businesses increased by 6.3 and 5.7 percent year-on-year, respectively, and their proportion of the whole urban employment market rose by 1.2 and 0.1 percentage points, respectively.

The weekly average working hours of employees in enterprises were 46.2 hours in November, an increase of 0.1 hours from the previous month, and 0.3 hours year-on-year.

Li said China should implement more positive employment policies, promote employment and entrepreneurship, and further resolve structural conflicts in the employment market, to ensure the sustained stability of the employment picture.