New progress has been made in the employment of the disabled, as China created new jobs for 329,000 disabled urbanites in 2012, according to a communique released on April 7.

As many as 299,000 handicapped urbanites received vocational training last year, while the number of vocational training bases inched up to 5,271 from 5,254 in 2011, said the communique, released by the China Disabled Persons' Federation.

According to the federation, a total of 16,514 blind masseuses and 4,925 blind medical workers were trained in 2012, with 12,887 massage care institutions and 848 medical massage institutions located across the country.

The communique showed that about 3.25 million disabled urbanites joined in the country's social pension insurance system for urban residents in 2012, accounting for 58.4 percent of the total disabled urban population.

In addition, about 13.34 million disabled people in rural areas were included in the new rural social endowment insurance system, making up 63.8 percent of the total disabled rural population, the communique said.