China will be in great need of IT technicians, machinists and nurses in the next few years, said the Ministry of Education yesterday.

The country will require 1 million additional IT technicians annually thanks to a booming high-tech industry, said the ministry.

The Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National Defense, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Information Industry, the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Public Health issued a report on required personnel earlier this month.

Software industry professionals totaled 600,000 in China, but only 340,000 had received professional training.

China will run short of both senior software engineers and programmers working for elementary development, the report said.

Operating revenue of China's software industry was 25 times more than that of a decade ago and was likely to top 250 billion yuan (US$30.2 billion) next year.

China will need 800,000 automotive mechanics during the next 24 months as the number of automobiles continues to rise by 13 percent each year, the report said.

Skilled mechanics are in demand as practitioners lacked training.

Just 38.7 percent of repair workers had received only nine years of education and 38.7 percent had received vocational training before starting their jobs.

Nurses are another sought-after profession. The report said the number of nurses would increase by 1 million to 2.3 million in the next decade.

By 2015, there will be 15 nurses for every 10,000 Chinese.

To help meet demand, more than 500 Chinese vocational schools and 1,400 enterprises have joined to train workers since late February.