China ahead in job creation: Hockey

The scales are tipped in China's favour when it comes to fast-paced economic reform, Treasurer Joe Hockey has learned.

Stressing the importance of structural economic reform at the Group of 20 finance minister's meeting on Sunday, Mr Hockey relayed a conversation he had with his Chinese counterpart Lou Jiwei.

"I don't think I'm giving away any confidences by saying the finance minister of China pointed out that they had undertaken some structural reform last year in China and 13 million jobs were created," he told reporters in Sydney on Sunday.

"I responded by saying, well it's taken us 200 years to create 13 million jobs."

China, whose economy is one the key global growth drivers, has a population of 1.3 billion compared to Australia's 23 million.

Mr Hockey said job creation required economic structural reform.

"I don't think there is a person in the room who doesn't believe that if we want to create more jobs we're going to have to undertake structural reform in our economies," he said.

Growth and job creation are just two of the key topics up for discussion on Sunday at the G20 gathering.