By 2001, 730 million Chinese were employed, two-thirds of whom were from rural areas.

The slimming-down of state-owned enterprises made much of the labor force redundant. The number of employees in these enterprises has been reduced to 50 million from 75 million.

The ministry said these laid-off workers have found new channels for re-employment. Some 16.8 million such workers have found jobs since 1998.

Most of them have chosen the service sector, including catering, tourism and retail. An army of 35 million people have been added to work in this field, accounting for 87 percent of the total increase of employment.

The private sector is fast growing in China, taking in more than two-thirds of those made redundant from state-owned enterprises. Over 120 million people worked for private enterprises in 2001. The figure in 1996 was 74 million.

(Xinhua News Agency September 9, 2002)