Shanghai had187,700 registered unemployed as of June, a decrease of 8,600 from the same period last year, the city’s human resources and social security bureau said.

In June, young people accounted for just over 20 percent of the total, a drop of nearly 9 percent from 2011, with training, help and specific programs to boost their job opportunities, according to the bureau yesterday.

More than 5,400 long-term jobless young people had received help to start their own businesses as of the end of June, with 8,000 the yearly target, the bureau said.

More than 610,000 people had received vocational training between January and June, and the city had also established 110 training centers of highly skilled talents.

A total of 385,400 new jobs had been created in the first half of the year, the bureau said, more than 77 percent of the target for the year. Of these, 108,500 covered strategic emerging industries.

Over 500,000 new jobs are provided in the city every year, the bureau said. The city’s registered jobless rate was 3.6 percent at the end of last year, a figure that decreases year by year, it said.

China’s job market remained generally stable in July, with the surveyed urban unemployment rate slightly up from 5.1 percent in June to 5.3 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.

Although the city’s job market is stable, the pressure on economic growth both at home and abroad and the emergence of world trade protectionism had led to increased uncertainty in the job market, said Zhao Yongfeng, the bureau’s director.

The city has taken measures, such as increasing the frequencyof monitoring key enterprises and providing subsidies for enterprises that retain employees, he said.

Last year, 117,900 enterprises enjoyed such subsidies, totaling 2.136 billion yuan (US$304 million).