The results of the poll, scheduled to be published in February, will produce the country's first surveyed or real urban unemployment rate, compared to the current registered urban jobless rate, according to Mo Rong, deputy director of the Institute for Labor Studies at the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.

He said the move is aimed at bringing China's statistics for unemployment more in line with international practices.

Mo, one of the organizers of the poll, said the sample survey will end next Wednesday.

More than 6,000 surveyors will interview people from 100,000 urban households in the cities, which will include the capital city of Beijing, he said.

Mo told China Daily the compilation of the data was jointly ordered by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council.

"Due to the failure of the present registered urban jobless rate to accurately and fully reflect the unemployment situation, the top leadership has ordered a gradual establishment of a new system for compiling the data," Mo said.

The ministry has designated a vice-minister to be in charge of the program.

Mo said the government plans to introduce the surveyed employment rate as the country's official jobless figure in the future after further careful studies to make the method more scientific and feasible.

He stressed the final results of the survey will "give a more realistic, accurate and comprehensive picture of China's unemployment problem."

The data will include the unemployment rate, social welfare enjoyed by the jobless and underemployment rate -- a measure of those who work less than 16 hours per week.

Until now, the Chinese Government had only published the registered urban unemployment rate -- without counting laid-off workers -- because their basic needs were still provided by their former employers.

(China Daily December 10, 2002)