China's urban registered unemployment rate stood at 4.3 percent in the first quarter of this year, keeping the same level of 2003, said a government spokesman here Monday.

Speaking at a press conference, an official with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security said the rate was compiled in accordance with international common practices. It recorded urban people that came to register themselves as jobless people.

The statistics did not cover laid-off workers of state-owned enterprises and collective enterprises, because these people stillmaintained labor relations with and their basic livelihood still guaranteed by their employers. The figure also excluded rural laborers seeking job in cities, said Yu Faming, director of the training and employment department of the ministry.

Source: Xinhua