China has trained more than 12 million construction migrant workers to improve their skills as millions are stilling looking for jobs, an official with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said on Saturday.

More than eight million migrant workers have been trained in 1,000 construction skill training agencies over the past years, and more than 90 percent of them gained skill certificate, said Wang Ning, head of the human resources department with the ministry.

More than 15,000 vocational training school offered classes to over four million workers, he said at a vocational skill contest held in Tianjin.

He noted workers get their skills improved through training, which played a positive role in the industry development.

However, the current training can not match the demand brought by the construction boom.

China has 225 million migrant workers, which included 140 million who left rural homes to work in the cities. A quarter of the total are working on construction sites.

As the global financial crisis worsened, millions of rural migrant workers lost their jobs at the beginning of the year.

(Xinhua News Agency June 28, 2009)