The number of China's registered urban jobless rose to 8.34 million by June, with the unemployment rate standing at 4.2 percent, the same as that of 2004, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security on Tuesday.

The statistics also showed that the number of people China laid-off from state-owned enterprises reduced by 360,000 to 1.17 million by the end of June, and 650,000 of them have signed agreements with the official re-employment service centers, which offer training and job information as well as pay social insurance premiums for them.

The ministry spokesman Hu Xiaoyi said at a press conference that in the the first half of the year, the ministry has organized 6,000 various recruitment fairs of private enterprises in 100 large and medium-sized cities, with the unemployed,graduates from colleges and technical secondary schools and skilled jobless people as the main visitors. Among them, 520,000 signed contracts with their new employers.

Source: Xinhua