Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region has set aside 46.95 million yuan (about 5.66 million US dollars) this year to help more urban residents in Tibet find jobs.

Information from a regional conference on employment and re- employment that opened last Saturday said that the money includes 13 million yuan (US$1.57 million) in state assistance funds and 3.95 million yuan (US$475,900) from the insurance pooling program against unemployment.

The Tibet Autonomous Regional government has set a goal of creating 10,000 new jobs and limiting the urban unemployment rate to around 4.5 percent this year. Relevant departments of the regional government have adopted a range of measures to help more urban residents, including vocational training courses and offering services to unemployed people, such as vocational guidance and introduction of new jobs.

Labor and social security departments of Tibet offered training courses to 4,193 laid off workers in the first eight months of this year, of whom, 2,069 have found new jobs.

Tibet will concentrate efforts on boosting service trade and labor-intensive enterprises, encourage and support development of the private economy so that more jobs will be created.

In the meantime, efforts will also be made to step up construction of a social security network and to safeguard the legitimate rights of laborers.

So far, 8,829 people have been re-employed in this region, dubbed the "roof of the world", including 4,998 laid off workers.