In a move to limit the influx of unskilled migrant workers to the capital, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security announced on Friday it will stop releasing classified ads for laborers and arrange for the selective import of skilled labor through provincial human resource agencies.
The bureau has already compiled around 60,000 job vacancies that require "technical skills" offering at least 1,500 yuan (US$228.15) a month, which will be released to the public next week.
"We'll select workers that we need," said Liu Xiaojun, director of the employment center at the bureau.
The move follows a prior labor policy launched by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in 2005.
The policy, "Spring Wind Campaign," called for local human resource bureaus to provide job vacancies in Beijing after the Spring Festival holidays every year to potential migrant workers.
Liu also said that the bureau plans to import laborers from provinces with labor surpluses.
In July 2010, the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress reported that the city's population had reached 19.72 million.
"Every year for the past three years, about 500,000 people poured into the capital," Zhai Zhengwu, head of the School of Sociology and Population Studies at Renmin University of China told the Global Times.