BEIJING — China's job market remained generally stable in the first seven months of the year, with the number of newly created jobs achieving 79 percent of this year's target.

A total of 8.67 million new urban jobs were created during the January-July period, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Aug 14.

The surveyed urban unemployment rate rose 0.2 percentage points to 5.3 percent last month, NBS data showed.

With about 8.3 million college graduates pouring into the job market this year during the graduation season, the unemployment rate in July picked up, said Liu Aihua, a spokesperson of the NBS.

The surveyed unemployment rate of the population aged between 25-59, representing the majority of the labor market, stood at 4.6 percent last month, unchanged compared with that in June, data from the NBS showed.

Meanwhile, the surveyed unemployment rate in 31 major cities was 5.2 percent, said the NBS.

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.

It 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.