China attaches great importance to the protection of the citizen's labour and social security rights. In order to protect the citizens' rights of employment, the State offers employment services and directions through developing various employment agencies, creates jobs, opens job training courses and adopts many other measures to promote the workers' employment and re-employment.

Over the past two decades, with the economic development, China has created non-agricultural jobs for more than 250 million people, and 130 million laborers have been transferred from the agricultural to non-agricultural sectors.

By the end of 1997, China had established over 34,000 employment agencies. With their help, a total of 8.737 million people found jobs that year. The registered unemployment rate in cities and towns was 3.1 per cent in 1998.

A re-employment project aiming at solving the problems of the jobless and the laid-off workers was initiated in 1994, and has been carried out nationwide.
By the end of 1998, all of the State-owned enterprises which laid-off workers had set up re-employment service centres, and 99 percent of the laid-off workers had registered with the centres, with 93.2 percent of them receiving unemployment benefits. With the help of the State-owned enterprises were re-employed in 1997 and 1998.

The State actively promotes the development of job training schemes, improves the workers' job skills and therefore increases their chances for finding employment.

There were 4,395 secondary technical training schools in China by the end of 1997, with nearly 1.932 million students and 699,000 graduates that year. At the same time, 1.37 million workers of various kinds also received training in the schools.

There were also 2,700 employment training centres and over 20,000 non-government training agencies approved by labor departments at various levels by the end of 1997, with an annual training capacity of about 5 million.

The State protects laborers' rights to payment, and their income level has been increasing gradually with the economic development. In 1997, the total income of workers in the country was 940.53 billion yuan (US$113.32 billion), up 3.6 per cent over the previous year. The per capita annual income of the workers in 1997 was 6,470 yuan (US $ 780), up 4.2 per cent over the previous year. If taking into consideration price fluctuations, it rose 1.1 per cent in real terms.

In the first half of 1998, workers in China earned a total wage of 446.69 billion yuan (US $ 53.82 billion), more than the same period in the previous year, up 4.4 per cent in real terms. The per capita monthly salary was 513 yuan (US $ 61.8), a real term increase of 6 per cent on an annual basis.

The State has implemented a minimum wage system. To date, all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities have issued and implemented the lowest standards for wages in their own areas to ensure the minimum wage standard for workers.

To protect the safety and health of workers, the State has promulgated a large number of special laws and regulations, established and improved labour safety and health systems, and strengthened the supervision and examination of workers' safety and health.

In recent years, injury and death from accidents in enterprises and the incidence of occupational illnesses have dropped. More enterprises have had their work environments approved after routine inspections.

In 1997, the incidence of fatal accidents dropped 12.5 per cent over the previous year, with the death toll down 9.8 per cent. The number of major accidents decreased by 15.6 per cent, and the death toll in serious accidents declined 1.8 percent.

Social security work has witnessed rapid development. By the end of 1998, a unified basic pension system for workers had been basically established throughout the country, and most provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities had carried out their own basic pension insurance systems in a unified way.

More than 84 million workers have participated in the pension insurance systems, and 99 per cent of retirees timely receive their full pensions.

By the end of 1998, 79.32 million workers had contributed to the unemployment insurance schemes. Up to the end of 1997, 3.964 million workers and 11.15 million retirees had participated in the reform of the medical insurance system.

About 11.553 million enterprise workers and 2.668 million retirees had joined in the medical cost social pools for major diseases.

At the same time, 26 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities had implemented social pools for work-related injuries and birth insurances, with 35.078 million and 24.859 million enterprise workers participating in the social pools for the tow insurance systems respectively.

Social relief and social welfare work have developed steadily. A system to ensure a minimum standard of living for urban residents had been established in 600 cities and 1.242 counties by the end of 1998, providing more than 3.32 million people with welfare benefits to guarantee a minimum standard of living. Welfare institutions across the country had a total of 1.06 million beds, caring for 800,000 people.

The right of Chinese citizens to receive education has been further protected. The State has increased investment in education, and vigorously created improved educational conditions for its citizens.

In 1997, China's total expenditure on education increased by 11.91 per cent over the previous year, with the government's budgeted expenditure on education augmented by 11.42 per cent.

The State budget expenditure on education accounted for 2.49 per cent of the GDP, higher than the previous year. The funds for education in the budgets of both central and local governments rose by 12.03 per cent over the previous year.

In 1998, an additional 360 counties, cities and districts met the demand to make nine-year compulsory education universal, and basically wiped out illiteracy among the young and adults. This meant that the total number of the counties, cities and districts realizing this goal came to 2,242covering 73 per cent of the total population, compared with 65 per cent in 1997.

China wiped out illiteracy among 3.2 million youngsters and adults in 1998, reducing the illiteracy rate among the young and adults to 5.5 per cent.

China had 629,000 primary schools in 1997, and the goal that every child could attend primary education was basically realized. There were 66,000 junior middle schools, and 94 per cent of the graduates from primary schools entered these schools.

Half of the graduates from junior middle schools went on to study at the country's 31,000 senior middle schools. The same year, there were more than 2,000 colleges and universities, with an annual enrollment capacity of more than 2 million students. About 45 per cent of the graduates from senior middle schools entered colleges and universities.

In 1997, 6.08 million students were studying in colleges and universities, including 180,000 postgraduates, 2.2 times and 9.6 times the figures of 1979 respectively.

The total enrollment rate of colleges and universities increased to 9.07
percent, higher than the average level of developing countries. According to statistics, 42.5 per cent of China's population aged 25 or above has received secondary education, approaching the level of developed countries, including the United States.