The country's registered average unemployment rate in urban areas reached 4 percent last year and is expected to go higher this year, Labor and Social Security Minister Zheng Silin told Xinhua yesterday.

There are nearly 14 million laid-off workers in urban areas so far. And more than 10 million new graduates are predicted to enter the work force, Zheng said.

To make things worse, the nation's agricultural adjustment has forced more than 150 million rural workers to quit farming. Many of them will head to the cities to seek employment, posing uncertainties for the State, he said.

Zheng, who was appointed as the minister during the first session of the 10th National People's Congress in March, has urged his departments nationwide to do more to assist laid-off workers to restart their lives.

"Helping middle-aged laid-off workers to find jobs again is the ministry's key task this year," Zheng said during a conference earlier this month.

The State will make efforts to create more than 8 million new jobs this year, mostly in the service and building industries.

These two sectors each employed 300,000 more workers in 2002, compared with 2001.

Zheng said one million of the positions will be allocated to middle-aged laid-off workers.

Most of the country's labor and social security departments have launched policies to enhance the re-employment of laid-off people, especially those middle-aged -- women aged above 40 and men older than 50.

The country's employment population reached 737.4 million last year, absorbing 7.2 million more employees than the previous year, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

(China Daily April 24, 2003)