China aims to create a considerable scale of urban jobs and keep the urban surveyed unemployment rate within 5.5 percent over the next five years, according to a human resources and social security development plan for the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) unveiled on Thursday.
The plan, released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, sets seven major goals and 18 quantified indicators. "Employment will be kept generally stable, with new progress in high-quality and sufficient employment," said a ministry official.
To achieve the goals, the plan outlines specific targets for reemployment, including helping 25 million unemployed urban workers find new jobs and providing employment assistance to 6.5 million people who have difficulty finding work.
Regarding vocational training, the plan calls for providing more than 50 million subsidized vocational training opportunities, including 17.5 million training participations among rural migrant workers.
Large-scale vocational training has been made a separate chapter in the plan to highlight its role in enhancing workers' employability and easing structural contradictions in employment, the official noted.
In terms of social security, the plan aims to keep the basic old-age insurance coverage rate above 95 percent. "The social security system will be more optimized and sustainable, with the level of protection further elevated," the official said.
It targets the number of participants covered by unemployment insurance and work-related injury insurance, including occupational injury protection, to reach 255 million and 345 million, respectively.
The scale of enterprise annuity funds or occupational pension funds is expected to exceed 9 trillion yuan (1.32 trillion U.S. dollars), according to the plan.
To develop a stronger technical and skilled talent workforce, other key targets include issuing professional qualification certificates to 14 million people, sustaining an annual recruitment of 35,000 postdoctoral researchers, and certifying 40 million person-times in vocational skills, including 14 million person-times at or above the senior worker level.
The plan also outlines measures to promote high-quality, full employment; improve the salary and income distribution system; foster harmonious labor relations; and comprehensively enhance the quality and efficiency of public services.
Notably, the plan highlights the impact of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). "Relevant policy measures have been laid out in the employment sector, while efforts will be made to empower the high-quality development of human resources and social security undertakings with AI," the official said.
Specific measures include implementing an AI employment-creation plan, expanding occupational injury protection trials, and improving mechanisms to adjust minimum wage standards.
"More new business forms and labor rights protection measures will be introduced," the official added.
To ensure implementation, the plan also lists practical and assessable projects such as a high-quality, sufficient-employment promotion project, a large-scale vocational skills upgrade training campaign, and the optimization of a unified national social insurance public service platform.
