An unnamed MHRSS official suggested in the future, data reported by employment service agencies should be combined with data reported by employers and data collected via sample surveys of employers and the labor force.

"The surveys should cover various groups including the self-employed and rural migrant workers," the official said.

Including rural migrant workers in unemployment statistics may raise or lower the urban unemployment rate, said Cai.

How much they can affect the rural unemployment rate depends on their ratio in the rural labor force and the economic situation, Cai said.

In good years, as rural migrant workers are willing to accept any kind of job, their unemployment rate is very low. During economic downturns, they are often the first to lose jobs, Cai added.

Greater supports

The national employment information monitoring system is set up at national, provincial and municipal levels, according to the MHRSS circular. Employment information will be submitted from the bottom up.

An Employment and Unemployment Registration Certificate will also be issued starting in 2011, to replace similar employment status certificates issued earlier, such as the Reemployment Preference Certificate.

Compared with previously issued similar certificates, the new certificate bears more information, and contains a national standard code. With this certificate, job seekers looking for work in other regions are entitled to the government's employment support incentives.

The Ministry of Finance and MHRSS stipulated in newly released employment preferential tax policies that employment and unemployment registration certificate holders who meet certain conditions can, within three years, deduct a maximum of 8,000 yuan ($1,194) each year for each household from their taxable income when paying business tax, urban maintenance and construction tax, education surplus tax and personal income tax for that year.

For taxpayers whose taxable income in that year is less than the deduction limit, the deduction limit should equal their taxable income.

The employers hiring holders of employment and unemployment certificates can also apply for preferential tax status for recruitment by presenting the certificates of their employees.

Previously, such preferential self-employment tax policies covered only laid-off workers in cities and a small number of urban groups in extreme hardship. Now it will be extended to all who have been unemployed for more than half a year and registered with public employment service agencies.

The new policies cover laid-off workers, college graduates, rural migrant workers, hard-to-employ people and families with no member working, as well as any labor-aged member of urban households entitled to a minimum living stipend who has registered as unemployed.

China Labor Force and Employment Data

By the end of 2009 China's total population had reached 1.33474 billion (excluding that of the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions and Taiwan Province), which contains a labor force of 1.06969 billion persons, 112.67 million more than in 2000; the number of employees had reached 779.95 million, of whom 311.2 million were urban employees, increasing 59.1 million and 79.69 million, respectively, compared with the year 2000.

With China's economic development and industrial structure adjustment, the proportion of those employed in primary industry has dropped significantly while that in tertiary industry has risen greatly. In 2009 the proportion of employment in primary, secondary and tertiary industries changed to 38.1 percent, 27.8 percent and 34.1 percent, from 50 percent, 22.5 percent and 27.5 percent, respectively, in 2000.

By the end of 2009 there had been over 10,000 public employment and human resources service institutions at or above the county or district level nationwide, and 37,000 service centers at the sub-district, town or township level, covering 97 percent of the country's sub-districts and 89 percent of its towns and townships.

The government has improved its functions in public employment and human resources service, providing free services such as policy information, release of supply and demand information of the market, information about job vacancies, vocational guidance, employment assistance and entrepreneurship training, and providing such services as social security management, archive management, examination and certification, and specialized services.

(Source: White Paper on China's Human Resources, issued by the State Council Information Office in September 2010 in Beijing)