China created jobs for more than 10 million urbanites in the first ten months of the year, achieving a yearly goal much earlier than expected, according to an official with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.

"Employment situation in China has been stable this year, with the first ten months completing 113 percent of the nine-million-job target set for the whole year," Vice Minister Zhang Xiaojian said Saturday at a national conference of employment.

The country's urban unemployment rate was registered at four percent by the end of September, down from 4.1 percent recorded at the end of last year, Zhang said, adding 95.7 percent of the country's former "zero employment" families had at least one person finding jobs again.

The Chinese government is under great pressure to create new jobs for the annual influx of ten million job seekers flocking into in the country's urban areas.

With more college graduates entering the job market each year, employment issue would become "more protruding", Zhang said, urging relevant departments to help registered unemployed graduates find new jobs soon.

More than 100 million "young migrant workers" born after 1980 had migrated to Chinese cities, according to Zhang, who warned their employment prospect was "grim" and "globalization would increase the risk of unemployment".

Statistics show that a total of 11.84 million urban Chinese found jobs last year, the first time China saw the number of newly employed urban people exceed 10 million in one year.

(Xinhua News Agency November 11, 2007)