BEIJING — China’s job market remained stable in March, seeing lower unemployment rate, official data showed on April 17.

In March, the surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas stood at 5.2 percent, down 0.1 percentage point from the previous month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Specifically, the surveyed unemployment rate of population aged between 25-59 was 4.8 percent, 0.4 percentage points lower than the overall surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas.

The urban surveyed unemployment rate in 31 major cities stood at 5.1 percent, up 0.1 percentage points from February.

Besides, the number of rural migrant workers reached 176.51 million as of the end of March, up 1.2 percent year-on-year, the NBS data showed.

The NBS started to regularly release the monthly surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas in last April to help the government improve macro-control and provide information for formulating employment policies.

The surveyed urban unemployment rate is calculated based on the number of unemployed people who have participated in the employment survey in urban areas, including migrant workers in cities.

The surveyed urban unemployment rate was first introduced in 2014 to better reflect the job market and serve as a supplement to the registered urban unemployment rate compiled by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.