China's job market continued to blossom in the third quarter of this year, with more job vacancies and job seekers reported from July to September.

There were 3.801 million posts listed in 115 cities across China for 4.013 million job seekers, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security said in a report released Thursday.

The numbers of job vacancies and job seekers in the third quarter increased by 46 percent and 37 percent respectively from the same period last year.

The 115 cities have a total urban population of 164 million, which is more than 63 percent of China's total urban population, and 61.9 million employees.

On average, 100 job seekers competed for 94 job vacancies in the third quarter of this year in Chinese cities, the statistics show.

Finding jobs in east China was easier than in other areas with 111 job vacancies for 100 job seekers.

Meanwhile, central China saw the most slack job market as an average of 100 job seekers had to compete for 77 positions.

Job market demands in the third quarter mainly focused on three major fields: Social services, manufacturing and trade and catering.

The number of posts offered in those fields accounted for 72.4 percent of all job vacancies.

Demand from the manufacturing industry increased by 1.8 percentage points compared with the second quarter of this year.

The country's registered urban unemployed population reached 8.21 million by the end of September, 160,000 less unemployed people from the end of the second quarter.

The registered urban unemployment rate reached 4.2 percent in the third quarter, dropping 0.1 percent from the second quarter.

Local labor and social security departments have launched a series of campaigns in the past few months to help the unemployed find a job or start their own business, including holding working skill training programs and providing small loans, officials said.

(China Daily October 29, 2004)