Xinhua News Agency reported today that preferential policies and programs developed by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MLSS) have helped 14 million laid-off workers find jobs over the last three years.

In each of the last three years more than nine million people found jobs in urban areas. That was two million more than in 2002, at the end of which central government established programs to help laid-off workers find new jobs.

From 2003 to the end of November this year, 27.65 million people across the country began new jobs. This included 14.25 million who had been laid off and 3.7 million in their forties and fifties who had had trouble finding jobs after being laid off.

The MLSS said the unemployment rate is 4.3 percent in urban areas.

Since 2003, 11 million laid-off people have received government-funded training and 60 percent of them reemployed. Some 800,000 people received training on how to start a business and 55 percent successfully did so.

Xinhua said that the State Council recently released new data on programs aiming to cultivate a more flexible employment environment next year.

(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2005)