Ningxia doubles down on employment effort

A worker (left) at the Helanshan Zhonglu subdistrict office in Yinchuan helps a job seeker fill out a form. HU YANG/FOR CHINA DAILY

In December, the third plenary session of the 13th CPC Committee of Ningxia and its economic work conference proposed the implementation of a number of priority policies and pledged to do everything possible to stabilize employment.

The aim is to create 80,000 new urban jobs, transfer 800,000 rural workers from farming, employ 90 percent of college graduates and keep the urban unemployment rate under 5.5 percent this year.

Xiao said that the department will take its lead from the conference, focus on the employment of college graduates and other key groups and support employment and entrepreneurship through a variety of measures.

The autonomous region will issue preferential policies to support companies in creating jobs and to encourage graduates and rural migrant workers who have returned to their hometowns to start their own businesses, thus creating more jobs.

"We will offer job training programs to targeted groups, especially those with strong skills and who are in urgent need, as well as accelerate the development of labor markets for migrant workers to keep the number of rural migrant workers stable," Xiao said.

"In addition, we will continue to strengthen employment assistance and ensure there are no zero-employment families," he added.

Ye Jiahua contributed to this story.