The Chinese government has helped retrieve 39.12 billion yuan (5.95 billion U.S. dollars) in back pay for some 33.53 million workers during the past five years, an official said on Monday.

From 2006 to 2010, China checked 8.3 million companies that employed 480 million workers, said Yang Zhiming, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security, at a national meeting held in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Meanwhile, the country's social security supervisory institutions handled 1.99 million labor disputes and urged enterprises to sign contracts with 64.65 million workers. China also required 808,000 companies to submit 25.12 billion yuan of social insurance for their employees.

Yang promised further efforts to supervise labor relations, human resources market and expand the coverage of social security in the coming five years.