Shanxi province has been focusing on training its rural laborers -- especially those from poor families -- in vocational skills in recent years, to help them secure employment and be lifted out of poverty. 

To improve the quality of training, Shanxi started selecting the best training institutions across the province to get involved in the program through open bidding and competition.

So far, 173 enterprises and technical colleges and 161 third-party evaluation agencies have applied to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security to independently carry out vocational skill level certification. 

This is to allow them to carry out vocational skills evaluations, according to Zhang Guowang, director of the vocational capacity development division at the Shanxi Department of Resource and Social Security. 

Improving the vocational skills training mechanism and building a public employment service platform that matches personal information with employment needs are Shanxi's vital measures in skills training-based poverty alleviation. 

The province has implemented eight provincial-level standards for vocational skills training in local 11 cities.

It has established a vocational skills training system covering all types of occupations, carried out targeted training according to market and employment needs and integrated online and offline training resources to increase the employment rate.

In the resettlement areas where over 800 relocated poor people have relocated, Shanxi has been building 100 employment and entrepreneurship service stations, as well as 100 public welfare service stations to conduct relocated labor information management, skills training, employment and entrepreneurship services.

Shanxi has also been cultivating and developing its regional labor services brands and expanding regional labor cooperation, to further broaden the job market outside the province for local labors.

For example, local Lyuliang city has trained 21,433 poor locals and 10,589 of them have found nursing jobs in over 20 cities in eight provinces and municipalities since 2016 -- with the labor service brand of Lyuliang Mountain nursing workers now known across China.

Shanxi has currently cultivated and developed 94 labor service brands with regional characteristics and identified 10 provincial-level labor service brands, which have greatly supported the employment and income growth of poor laborers in the province.

Due to efforts made by the province, 209,300 poor people in Shanxi have received vocational skills training since 2016 and among them, 72,900 have been employed, with their average income increasing more than 30 percent.