Chinese employees working for publicly-traded companies may now have the option to receive their take home pay in the form of stock options from the shares of their companies as the federal government mulls to reinvent the country's overall wage structure to help lift investor confidence in the local stock market.

In a set of draft rules published on the website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) over the weekend, Chinese workers may secure or convert as much as 30 per cent of their salaries from physical cash to in the form of stock options. However, a holding period will be instituted in such that shares received as salaries or bonuses would have to be held for at least 36 months.

"It is not only necessary but also timely now to start employee shareholding programs at listed companies," the CSRC said in a statement supplementing the draft, noting this allows "the optimal allocation of society's capital through the capital market."

China's securities regulator had reduced trading fees for stocks in support of the program, as well as developed over-the-counter trial exchanges. The CSRC had likewise authorized futures companies to open asset management related-businesses.

The reduction in trading fees will help support the regulator's "intention to stabilize the Chinese stock market to boost investors' confidence in the long term," analyst Fanny Chen wrote in a report.

Employees will receive no more than 10 per cent of the listed companies' total shares, the draft rules noted. Third parties such as asset management arms of insurance companies, trust firms, securities firms and fund management companies are the only ones allowed to manage these employee share programs, the regulator said.

Of the four biggest emerging economies, the stock market of the world's second-largest economy had been the worst performer so far this year.

Following concerns that China's economic slowdown could deepen amid the eurozone's worsening debt predicament, the benchmark Shanghai Composite index has fallen 13 per cent from this year's high on March 2. It had shed 2.7 per cent this year, compared with improvements in fellow emerging economies Brazil, India and Russia.