Chinese wages see double-digit growth

BEIJING - The average annual salaries of urban Chinese workers at non-private companies hit 42,452 yuan ($6,717) in 2011, up 14.3 percent year on year, statistical authorities announced Tuesday.

After taking inflation into account, wages actually grew by about 8.5 percent, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Meanwhile, the annual salaries of workers at privately-owned businesses in urban regions grew 12.3 percent (after deducting factor of inflation) to 24,556 yuan in 2011, NBS data showed.

The data was based on a survey of 1.48 million non-privately owned organizations and 620,000 private companies, the NBS said.

Wages for workers in the nation's more developed eastern regions and major cities were the highest, while the central provinces of Anhui, Henan and Hubei ranked lowest, according to the NBS.

The finance, telecommunication, computer service and software development sectors offered the highest salaries, the NBS said.

Feng Nailin, director of the population and employment statistics department under the NBS, said last year's stable and rapid economic growth helped buoy wages.

Preliminary data showed that the country's economic output expanded 9.2 percent in 2011 to 47.16 trillion yuan.

The salary increase came after more than two-thirds of provincial governments hiked their minimum wages by an average of 22 percent last year, Feng said.

Feng said the wage growth is in line with a trend of growing labor costs in recent years.