Guangdong Province hopes to create more than 1 million jobs per year during the 11th Five-Year Program (2006-10) in a bid to keep its urban unemployment rate under 3.8 per cent in the coming years.

The province's registered unemployment rate was 3.5 per cent last year.

Meanwhile, observers warned that Guangdong would have to create jobs at a much faster pace in order to absorb the large numbers of students, farmers and migrant labourers who enter the job market each year.

The Guangdong provincial government expects to spend more than 4.04 billion yuan (US$516 million) to help its residents find jobs during the five-year plan.

More than 800,000 laid off workers are to be re-employed each year in the coming five years. By the end of 2010, more than 56 million people are expected to be able to find jobs in this southern province, which borders Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

Xie Qianghua, vice-governor of Guangdong Province, has urged local residents, particularly workers who have been laid off, to improve their capabilities and skills by taking training courses.

Still, despite the government's job-creation plans, the province's employment situation will remain grim in the coming years, Fang Chaogui, director of Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Labour and Social Security, said.

Sources from Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Labour and Social Security said Guangdong would have to create at least 1.4 million jobs per year to meet the demand for employment.

Guangdong's jobseekers come from many sources. In addition to the new university graduates who enter the market each year, the province must also accommodate retired servicemen, labourers from the countryside, farmers whose farmland has been used for industrial projects, recently released prisoners, newly laid-off workers and disabled people, according sources from the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Labour and Social Security.

More than 4 million farmers will have to find jobs in the province's cities before 2010.

In the first 10 months of this year, Guangdong created 841,000 jobs, and more than 66,000 laid-off workers have been re-employed. At the same time, 665,000 surplus labourers from countryside have found new jobs in the cities.

In addition, Guangdong has employed more than 17 million migrant workers from outside the province since the beginning of the year.

Most of the migrant workers are employed by foreign-funded companies, joint ventures and private businesses in the prosperous Pearl River Delta cities.

Guangdong Province has the lowest urban unemployment rate on the Chinese mainland.

Wen Xuefang, a local woman who was recently laid off, said the government's efforts would reduce unemployment. Wen said she was laid off from a shoe factory in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, in November of 2005.

Editor: Yan