URUMQI, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region said Sunday it has employed more than 124,000 rural labor workers in its key transport construction projects as of September this year.

About 92.7 percent of workers employed in the construction projects launched this year were from Xinjiang, said the Transport Department of Xinjiang.

In June, the department released guidelines to promote the employment of Xinjiang's rural labor force in the region's transportation construction projects.

According to the guidelines, for road construction projects that began in 2017, at least 90 percent of workers must be from Xinjiang. At least 50 percent of workers must be from Xinjiang for continuing road construction projects in 2017.

Xinjiang will invest more than 820 billion yuan (about 274 billion U.S. dollars) this year in 4,347 transport construction projects.