The hearing-impaired shop owner communicates with a customer at her coffee shop in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, May 17, 2019. (Xinhua/Weng Xinyang)

A white paper released by the State Council Information Office reports a rise in employment for disabled people who are able and willing to work.

BEIJING, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Employment for people with certified disabilities reached 9.48 million in China in 2018, according to a white paper released Thursday.

In the past decade, China's disabled workforce has increased by around 300,000 a year, said the white paper on China's protection of the rights and interests of persons with disabilities over the past 70 years.

In 2018, another 367,000 persons with certified disabilities were hired, 118,000 in urban areas and 249,000 in rural areas.

Disabled people in both rural and urban areas who are able and wish to work are entitled to free services in finding employment or establishing self-employment. Help is offered to the job-seekers and their employers.

By 2018, there were 2,811 employment service organizations for the disabled, with a total of 34,000 staff.

Since 2011, nearly 13 million disabled people have been helped to engage in production activities as part of poverty relief efforts, as a result 6.76 million no longer live below the country's poverty line.

There are 5,490 poverty alleviation centers nationwide that target disabled people in poverty, employing 881,000 disabled people and increasing income of 1.77 million households with disabled members.