Jobseekers at an employment fair in Mengcheng, Anhui province. A survey has found that the employment outlook is positive in the fourth quarter of this year as the economy recovers.HU WEIGUO / FOR CHINA DAILY

"In order to boost employment, the policy is expected to benefit more than 6 million small companies and boost the employment and income for tens of millions of people," said Zhang.

Zhang added that China would continue to keep its macro-control policies stable and accelerate the shutdown of outdated facilities.

Its Employment Outlook Survey, covering the fourth quarter of the year, said the net employment outlook — which compared hiring and layoff figures — for the Chinese industrial sectors was +13 percent, meaning more employers planned to increase than cut staff, a figure that remained unchanged quarterly and dropped 1 percentage point annually.

The survey showed that most positive hiring activity is anticipated in the wholesale and retail sectors, with an outlook of +15 percent, while the finance, insurance and real estate sectors, as well as the manufacturing sector remain strong, all with outlooks of +14 percent.

"We have been expanding the number of employees throughout the whole year because we are planning to enlarge our e-commerce department to switch our focus to online platforms with a more talented labor force in the next three months," said Wang Hailong, public relation officer of Aokang Group, a Wenzhou-based shoemaker that has strategic cooperation partners in Europe, including Geox and Valleverde.

Aokang has more than 10,000 employees with a quite low staff turnover rate of 5 percent.

"Apart from the expansion, the regular recruitment work of the company has been growing in order to catch up with the gradual economic recovery of the country," said Wang.

China offices of foreign-based companies have also been hiring in large numbers.