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MEXICO CITY Mexico brags about its low unemployment rate.

But the National Statistics Institute says a lack of unemployment benefits and worker migration to the U-S are prime factors in keeping official estimates of the jobless low.

The institute offered the statement this week to explain a new employment survey used this year.

The goal is to bring Mexico's data in line with other members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, which Mexico joined in 1994.

The survey had been expected to add at least one percentage point to the unemployment rate.

But instead, the figures showed levels of unemployment below those of the existing survey of 32 major cities in Mexico.

President Vicente Fox earlier this year said Mexico has a lower unemployment rate than any country in Europe or Latin America -- using the new reporting method.