China will maintain a proactive policy on employment by providing diversified skills training, encouraging entrepreneurship and restructuring inefficient industries, with the aim of boosting the number of new jobs and overall workforce quality.

Unleashing market potential and enhancing policy implementation will be priorities under a new program on employment for the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period. The program was approved on Wednesday at a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.

"Employment is vital to people's livelihood and provides core support for developing our economy," Li said. "The importance of employment cannot be overestimated."

"With jobs, there is income, and hence a basis for innovation, stability and development. We want sound momentum going forward, and sound jobs are a start," said Li,

China's economic transition carries huge job potential, as new forces driving the economy are growing with strong momentum.

This calls for immense efforts to keep the skill and talent pool improving along with the economic upgrading, according to a news release after the meeting.

The new plan offers a set of measures under which emerging industries and the service sector will play a bigger role in creating jobs.

Efforts will be enhanced under the plan to boost mass innovation and entrepreneurship to create jobs. Startup businesses will face lower institutional costs and a more nurturing market environment. New jobs will be more flexible but will not offer less security.

Huang Qunhui, director of the Institute of Industrial Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "Jobs and steady incomes will meet the need to improve our lives and help social stability from the bigger picture. That's why steady employment is so crucial."

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