About 22.8 million skilled workers will enter China's workforce in the next five years, adding pressures to the employment market, a senior labor official said here.

Hu Xiaoyi, vice minister of labor and social security said during a recent visit to this capital of east China's Anhui Province that 8.9 million of the new workers are expected to have advanced work skills.

Statistics with the ministry show 87.2 million workers in urban areas had professional occupational certificates or skill qualifications, accounting for 33 percent of the 270 million total.

Hu said that by the end of China's 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010), the proportion of skilled workers in the work force is expected to surge to 40 percent, or some 110 million, of whom 27.5 million will have advanced education backgrounds or skills.

The ministry forecast that the employment pressure will continue with the rising proportion of skilled workers including college students.

In 2005, 3.38 million students graduated from colleges and universities, a 20-percent increase from in 2004, while education authorities estimate 4 million college graduates in 2006.

Those who will seek jobs in 2006 also include 2.7 million graduates from secondary vocational schools, 2.1 million graduates from middle and high schools, 700,000 ex-servicemen, 2.6 million former rural residents who now have urban registered permanent residences, 1 million laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises yet to be placed and 8.4 million registered unemployed people.

However, China will create 9 million jobs in 2006 and resettle 5 million unemployed laid-off workers, aiming to confine the registered unemployment rate in urban areas to 4.6 percent.

Experts here say that a large labor force makes China competitive in labor cost and attractive to foreign investment. However, it also enables entrepreneurs to confine workers' salaries to a low level, leading to further economic polarization.