The Chinese government has helped to retrieve 66.5 billion yuan (9.7 billion U.S. dollars) of back pay for around 16.7 million workers by the end of 2008, an official said on Tuesday.

Yang Zhiming, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security, said back-pay complains skyrocked after the reform and restructuring of state-owned enterprises resulted into earning declines and bankrupcies.

Most of the businesses were in the Northeast old industrial base and the less-developed central and western regions. They had no assets and production activity, Yang said.

Almost all the back pay has been recovered by the end of 2008, three yeas after the authorities started to tackle the problem, he told a national conference on labor relations. The fund was from China's central and local governments and the central-administered state-owned enterprises.

The official also urged more efforts to prevent increases in new back-pay complaints, especially among the rural migrant workers, as the economic slowdown led to sharp falls in earnings and even bankrupcies.

China has piloted programs in provinces like Anhui, Hubei and Yunnan that requires employers to set aside guaranty fund which authorities can use to pay back wages, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2009)