Guangzhou, capital of economically-developed Guangdong Province in south China, registered an unemployment rate of 2.42 percent last year, a drop of 1.15 percent year-on-year, a local labor and social security official said in Guangzhou Thursday.

The registered number of jobless people was 67,700 in the city at the end of last year, a year on year decrease of 30.2 percent and the smallest number in the past five years.

Zhang Jieming, head of the city labor and social security bureau, told a news conference hosted by the city government that the city created 310,000 new jobs last year, much more than the targeted 200,000.

The new employees included 164,800 jobless and about 80,000 new laborers, which include recent college graduates and more than 50,000 farmers turned urban employees.

Zhang said that 1,739 of the city's 1,824 "zero employment" households each had at least one family member to find employment by the end of last year.

(Xinhua News Agency February 4, 2005)