BEIJING - China's growing service sector has provided a growing number of jobs as a result of economic restructuring, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In 2016, the service sector employed 43.5 percent of China's workforce, up from 36.1 percent in 2012, a report posted on the NBS official website said on Wednesday.

Private firms have become the main source of new jobs, the NBS said. The share of state-owned enterprises, however, witnessed a drop of 5.4 percent year on year as of the third quarter last year.

In job creation, small enterprises outperformed medium and large ones, while the south beat the north, the report said.

During the 2012-2016 period, every percentage point of GDP expansion means 1.72 million new non-farm jobs in China, it added.

China created 13.1 million new jobs for urban residents last year. The registered unemployment rate in Chinese cities stood at 4 percent at the end of 2016.