China’s Workforce No Longer Dominated by Youth: Survey

China no longer has a youth-dominated labor force as a report by a leading Chinese university revealed that the average age in the country’s labor force is 37.57, the Global Times reported.

The information was collected on workers aged between 15 and 64 in 29 provinces and municipalities in China as part of the 2015 China Labor-force Dynamic Survey released on Sunday, Dec. 6, by the Center for Social Surveys at Guangzhou-based Sun Yat-sen University, the news site jiemian.com reported Monday, Dec.7.

The survey showed that laborers aged between 15 and 29 account for 33.07 percent of the country's labor force, while people aged between 20 and 44 account for 32.8 percent.

The survey also revealed that all workers receive an average salary of 30,197 yuan ($4,714) in 2014, with an average annual growth rate of 9 percent.

According to the survey, male workers receive an average annual salary of 33,697 yuan, while female workers get 23,288 yuan a year.

The survey also found that the working hours of China's labor force was reduced from an average of 50 hours to 45 hours a week from 2012 to 2014.

Self-employed entrepreneurs were also found to have the longest average working hours, while professionals and people who head an organization or company have the shortest number of work hours.

The data also showed that the biggest portion of workers doing overtime work came mostly from foreign joint ventures, state-owned enterprises and government agencies and departments.

Early this year, the South China Morning Post reported that the country's working-age population continued to fall in 2014, made worse by its one-child policy.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the mainland's total population stood at 1.37 billion at the end of 2014, an increase of 7.1 million from the previous year.

The working-age population, between 16 and 59, also dropped to 915.8 million in 2014, down 3.7 million from the end of 2013, the report said.