By the end of June, Baotou city in North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region had organized 480 online and offline subsidized employment and entrepreneurship training courses, benefitting some 15,000 residents, according to local media reports.

In the wake of the novel coronavirus outbreak, the human resources and employment departments of Baotou have actively responded to epidemic prevention and control policies, officials said.

They have also promoted the use of free online platforms provided by the country and the autonomous region, to organize and implement online training to allow residents to further improve their vocational skills.

The city has offered subsidies to key employment groups including company employees, the children of poor families, urban and rural junior high school graduates, rural migrant workers, laid-off unemployed and transferred workers, retired soldiers, and disabled people.

In terms of training methods, the vocational skills training programs have adopted a phased training method. Officials said that by the end of June, the city had offered 230 subsidized online employment and entrepreneurship training courses and the number of trainees had reached 7,000.

Starting May 14, offline training sessions were held, but with strict implementation of epidemic prevention and control measures.

Each training class is limited to a maximum of 30 people and participants must wear masks and have their temperatures taken.