The Chinese Government will release unemployment rates next year calculated under a method that could double the figure from levels now reported, according to a report in the China Daily on Saturday.

China will start to announce unemployment figures based on direct research starting in the second half of next year, the paper reported, citing Yu Xiuqin, a spokeswoman for the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics.

"The unemployment index calculated through investigation will be much higher than the current urban-registered unemployment rate," Yu told the newspaper.

"The change was done to follow international practices."

Figures using the new method will be more accurate and about double current numbers, Wang Xiaolu, deputy director of the National Economic Research Institute under the China Reform Foundation, told the paper.

Yu said unemployment rates using the investigation method have been calculated in China since 2000, but those figures have never been publicly released.

Editor: Yan