(Yicai Global) June 15 -- China’s demographic dividend has not disappeared and a new talent dividend is forming, with the working-age population totaling about 880 million at the end of last year, Xinhua News Agency reported an official from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security as saying.

The labor force participation rate in China is relatively higher than globally, and labor resources are still abundant, said the person in charge of the ministry's employment promotion department, according to the report yesterday.

The number of older workers has decreased while that of younger ones has increased, the official said, adding that the average working-age person aged 16 to 59 completes 10.9 years of education.

China's urban unemployment rate was 5.2 percent last month, unchanged from April, when it fell 0.1 percent from March to the lowest since last year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed today. But the jobless rate rate for those aged 16 to 24 rose to 20.8 percent from 20.4 percent, the highest since 2018. It stood at 19.8 percent in March.

China’s employment and social security systems are undergoing a series of adjustments and reforms in the face of a declining and rapidly aging population, the official person said. The next step is to expand job vacancies, steady women's employment levels, promote youth employment, and strengthen employment assistance for older workers, the person added.

It is important to strengthen vocational education to improve the workforce's structure and enhance the quality of human resources, the official heading the ministry's vocational capacity building department noted. The ministry will implement a lifelong vocational education system, they pointed out.

The ministry has also proposed building an endowment policy compatible with modernization, including improving private pension-supporting policies to attract more participants and moderately raising the basic pension based on factors such as changes in prices and the average salary.

Editor: Martin Kadiev