The number of employees and people with insurance rose considerably from January to September, a labor official said yesterday, highlighting the addition of 9.2 million people to the labor force in urban areas since 2007.

Up to 4.06 million laid-off workers and 1.1 million people who had difficulty finding work were employed during these months; while 810,000 of 847,000 zero-employment households now have working members, Yin Chengji, spokesperson at the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, said.

Additionally, as a result of aggressive campaigns to expand social security coverage, the number of Chinese covered by insurance against old age, medical problems, unemployment, work injuries and childbirth reached 196.76 million, 188.96 million, 114.73 million, 115.3 million and 73.27 million, respectively, by the end of last month.

Yin said up to 34.47 million rural migrants now have work injury insurance and 29.03 million have joined medical insurance schemes.

Revenues this year from the five insurance funds will total 72.2 billion yuan ($9.6 billion), an increase of 27.8 percent over the last nine months of last year.

In the meantime, 37.75 billion yuan was handed out to pensioners, whose monthly subsidy increased by an average of 90 yuan per month.

China has initiated several campaigns to tackle employment and social security issues in the past few years. Most recently, President Hu Jintao stressed in a keynote speech at the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China the country aims "to establish a sound social security system based on social insurance, assistance and welfare, with basic old-age pensions, medical care and subsidence allowances as its backbone, supplemented by charity and commercial insurance."

Despite State efforts challenges remain.

For example, despite a 4 percent unemployment rate throughout its cities and towns for September, China still needs to create jobs and close a widening income gap between the rich and poor, Yin said.

Thirteen provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have readjusted the local minimum wage since this year, but "notable regional and sector disparities persist", he said.

(China Daily October 23, 2007)