China's Urban Unemployment Rate at 4.1% by 2010: Official

China's urban unemployment rate stood at 4.1 percent at the end of last year, with 9.08 million people registered as unemployed, an official with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said Tuesday.

Further, the country had created 11.68 million jobs last year, exceeding the government goal of 9 million, spokesman Yin Chengji told a press conference.

The fourth quarter unemployment rate remained unchanged from the third quarter, which dropped 0.1 percentage points from 4.2 percent at the end of the second quarter.

Additionally, some 5.47 million laid-off workers were re-employed last year, surpassing the goal of getting 5 million laid-off people back to work, said Yin.

At the end of 2009, China's unemployment rate was 4.3 percent. The government sought to keep the urban unemployment rate below 4.6 percent in 2010.

Some 18 million people joined government-subsidized vocational training programs last year, of which 6.67 million were migrant workers, he said.

Also, up to 90.7 percent of the 6.3 million college graduates who entered the job market last year had found jobs in 2010.

Additionally, about 570,000 graduates received vocational training while 1.09 million received lessons on how to start businesses, said Yin.

University graduates' employment has always been one of the top tasks of the Chinese government, he said.

Some 6.6 million university graduates would enter the job market this year, he noted.

By the end of last year, 30 of the 31 mainland provincial-level regions had raised the minimum wage level in 2010, with an average increase of 22.8 percent year on year.

In Shanghai, the local minimum wage was the highest nationwide, totaling 1,120 yuan (about 170.2 U.S. dollars) per month.

Some 256.73 million urban employees had joined social insurance programs by the end of last year, 21.23 million more than a year earlier, he said.