China said on Friday that urban employment held up in the first quarter even as economic growth slowed to a 6-year low, but the labor ministry warned that authorities cannot be “blindly optimistic” as the pace of job creation is slowing. The urban unemployment rate was at 4.05 percent at the end of March, little changed from 4.1 percent at the end of 2014. “The pace of urban job creation is slowing as economic growth weakens. Employment indicators tend to lag behind economic growth,” Xin Changxing, Vice Minister of Human Resource and Social Security, told a news conference.