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China add to global jobs gloom

China announced sharp increases in unemployment on Monday as US President Barack Obama tried to steer a huge stimulus package through the Senate.

Premier Wen Jiabao said Beijing could resort to "extraordinary measures" to boost its economy, in an interview given just before the latest data showed the global slowdown was hitting China harder than earlier numbers had indicated.

The sense of gloom in Asia was compounded when South Korea said exports in January were worth 21.7 billion dollars, a year-on-year drop of 32.8 percent and the biggest such decline since 1980.

China said that about 20 million rural migrants were now out of work -- more than triple the number announced last month -- in an indication that the slowdown in the world's third-largest economy was intensifying.

Large numbers of Chinese workers have lost their jobs as demand in North America and Europe for the cheap consumer goods made in China has fallen off sharply, forcing thousands of factories to shut their doors.

An average of six million to seven million people leave their rural homes every year to find jobs, on top of the 20 million jobless, senior rural planning official Chen Xiwen said.

The government said on Sunday that 2009 could be the "toughest year" since the turn of the century for development of the countryside, which has fallen behind as Chinese economic reforms have favoured the cities.

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Meanwhile in Europe, a new survey indicated manufacturing activity in the 16 countries using the euro retreated in January as France's finance minister said that unemployment climbed by 45,000 last month.

Christine Lagarde said official figures would be released later in the day but confirmed the surge in joblessness and warned that France "will certainly be in recession at some point or another."

"I'd be extremely astonished if we have positive growth in 2009, let's be realistic," she told reporters on board a train heading to Lyon, where Prime Minister Francois Fillon was due to unveil new stimulus measures.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy announced last week that unemployment jumped had 387,000 in January.