Employment and income connect thousands of households. What new measures will be introduced in 2025 to stabilize employment and increase income? On the 21st, at a press conference held by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, officials from relevant departments and bureaus answered three hot topics. How to stabilize and expand employment? Employment is the most direct way to increase residents' income. In 2024, 12.56 million new urban jobs will be created nationwide, and the scale of poverty alleviation workers will reach 33.052 million. Next, we will anchor the goal of high-quality and full employment, deepen reforms in the employment sector, improve employment priority policies, stabilize key employment groups, optimize employment public services, and ensure a stable employment situation Chen Yongjia, Deputy Director of the Employment Promotion Department of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said. Chen Yongjia introduced that by 2025, the employment support plan for key areas, key industries, urban and rural grassroots, and small and medium-sized enterprises will be implemented to continuously expand new growth points for employment. At the same time, policies such as stable employment return, tax incentives, guaranteed loans, and employment subsidies will be implemented to help enterprises stabilize and expand their employment. The employment of college graduates is of paramount importance. The expected number of graduates from ordinary universities nationwide in 2025 is 12.22 million, an increase of 430000 compared to the same period last year. Next, we will develop more job opportunities that leverage the expertise of graduates, strengthen support for small and medium-sized enterprises and social organizations to attract college graduates for employment, establish a system for collecting and publishing grassroots positions in urban and rural areas, and promote multi-channel employment and entrepreneurship for young people Chen Yongjia said. One person is employed, and the whole family is lifted out of poverty. At present, there are about 300 million migrant workers in China, and promoting their employment and income growth is of great significance. In 2025, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security will take multiple measures to expand the employment channels for migrant workers, broaden local employment channels, and enhance the employment capacity of counties; In addition, an employment assistance system will be implemented, utilizing public welfare positions to provide support and assistance, ensuring that at least one person from zero employment families is employed. How to promote skill income increase? At present, the total number of skilled talents in China has exceeded 200 million, accounting for more than 26% of the total employed population. However, the total number of skilled talents is still insufficient, especially high skilled talents are in short supply in the job market. Improving workers' skills can steadily increase their income. Migrant workers who have undergone skills training and are driven by labor service brands have much higher wages than ordinary migrant workers. In 2025, we will focus on industries with large employment capacity and prominent supply-demand contradictions, such as health care and childcare, advanced manufacturing, modern services, and new professions. We will focus on migrant workers, college graduates who have left school but are unemployed, registered unemployed individuals, and groups facing employment difficulties, and carry out large-scale vocational skills training to enhance the employment ability of workers and promote their stable income growth Lu Aihong, spokesperson for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, introduced. In order to highlight incentive guarantees and enhance the attractiveness of skilled employment, the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Implementing the Employment Priority Strategy to Promote High quality and Full Employment" released in September 2024 clearly requires "dynamic release of salary price information for skilled talents, guiding enterprises to gradually improve the salary and benefits of skilled talents". The reporter learned that in the next step, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security will establish a skill oriented salary distribution system, carry out collective wage negotiations in areas and industries where skilled talents gather, implement guidelines for salary distribution for skilled talents, promote the implementation of a starting point salary system for skilled talents, and encourage those who work harder to earn more and those with higher skills to earn more. How to promote the reduction of burden and increase of income for the masses? The more economic development is under pressure, the more we need to hold onto the bottom line of people's livelihoods and enhance social security. In 2024, the human resources and social security department will pay a total of 24.77 million basic old-age insurance premiums for urban and rural residents on behalf of disadvantaged individuals, and provide unemployment insurance benefits, basic medical insurance, and maternity insurance premiums totaling 121.4 billion yuan to unemployed individuals. In 2025, while guiding the implementation of social security assistance policies in various regions, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security will improve the social security system, increase social security benefits, and provide more comprehensive and reliable social security to reduce the worries of workers. Lu Aihong stated that by 2025, the basic pension for retirees will be appropriately increased, with more emphasis on the middle and low-income groups; Improve the basic pension for urban and rural residents, actively promote the standardization pilot of collective subsidies, advance the improvement of payment levels and multi-channel financing, and enhance the level of urban and rural housing insurance benefits. Wages are the main source of income for workers. We will focus on increasing the proportion of labor remuneration in the initial distribution, strengthen macro guidance and regulation of wages, and promote reasonable and stable growth of people's wage income, "said Lu Aihong. He stated that in the next step, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security will guide localities to adjust the minimum wage standards reasonably and gradually increase the proportion of minimum wage to the average social wage; Increase guidelines for salary distribution in key industries and key groups; Deepen the reform of the salary system in state-owned enterprises, guide enterprises to establish and improve the distribution mechanism of salaries for various talents based on their performance contributions, and increase incentives for key personnel in scientific and technological innovation. (New Society)