JINAN - East China's Shandong province, the country's largest labor exporter, sent nearly 50,000 laborers abroad in 2011, local authorities said Sunday.

According to the provincial commerce department, 48,836 people went abroad for jobs last year, including 8,147 high-end laborers, marking a rise of 31 percent from 2010.

Increases in Shandong's overseas projects drove the rise in labor exporting. Turnover in the province hit $4.47 billion in 2011, putting it second on the list of the country's overseas project turnover. Housing construction and the electric power and petrochemical industries made up 88 percent of the total turnover.

More than 19,000 people went to Japan, Shandong's largest employer market, and another 18,000 people headed to central and south Africa, the Middle East and Southern Asia.

Labor export emerged in the 1980s in Shandong province, which topped country's list in 2010 by exporting 47,300 people.