After three months of record youth unemployment, Chinese officials decided to stop measuring it.
National statisticians will pause A spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday that the publication of the unemployment rate for urban residents aged 16 to 24 was for “further optimization”.
The bureau said it wanted more research on “whether students who look for work before graduation should be counted in labor force statistics.”
21% of those between the ages of 16 and 24 Unemployed Record high in June, following record set during the previous two months.
The situation could be even worse if the bureau releases July figures, as an estimated 12 million graduates are starting to enter the workforce. (The overall urban unemployment rate in China released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday 5.3% increase in Julyan increase of 0.1 percentage points from the previous month).
Youth unemployment is now a major crisis facing the Chinese government.
Construction and manufacturing, two sectors that employ young migrant workers, have struggled amid China’s property crash, weak domestic consumption and sluggish foreign trade.
The country’s tech industry, which normally employs many Chinese tech graduates, is also slowing down after a years-long crackdown by regulators.
Chinese officials are now available Aid and subsidies to encourage businesses to hire young graduates and push young job seekers to consider work In the countryside.
But even the official line is pessimistic. Chinese President Xi Jinping is accused of suggesting that young Chinese may have toendure hardship“—a colloquial term that implies the need to endure tough times—in order to be successful.
The president of a university in Chongqing reportedly told his 9,000 graduates in June not to “aim too high or be picky about jobs.” New York Times.
data is incorrect
Some Chinese economists agree that China’s youth unemployment figures are wrong, but current measures may underestimate rather than overestimate unemployment.
exist a widely circulated article Earlier this year, Wang Mingyuan, a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Reform and Development, a think tank, said the barriers to employment in China were too low — just one hour a week — and it was difficult to count both migrant workers and migrant workers. The gig economy.
Last month, Zhang Dandan, a professor of economics at Peking University, estimated that if those “lying down” Chinese youth were included, the youth unemployment rate in China could be as high as 46.5%. labor force. (Most unemployment indicators does not include those not actively seeking employment)
Even Beijing doesn’t believe the data, as education officials explore university to make sure they don’t ask graduates to lie about their employment status.
stop talking bad news
More broadly, China’s economic recovery is rapidly losing steam.
On Tuesday, the Office for National Statistics reported that lower-than-expected growth Industrial production and retail trade.
Earlier, China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, reported credit data that, $47.8 billion New loans issued in July fell 89% from the previous month and were just over half the amount issued a year earlier.
Trade also fell sharply, with July exports down 14.5% same time last year.
Beijing has already suspended an underperforming metric. In March, the Bureau of Statistics stop publishing It measures an indicator of consumer confidence.
authorities also clamp Regarding outbound data flow, and attack Due diligence and expert networking of companies, sometimes for reasons of national security.
officials also It is said Forcing economists, analysts and other commentators not to share bad news about the Chinese economy, forcing them to turn to euphemisms like “weak inflation” instead of talking about the risk of deflation.
Lawyers were reportedly asked to talk about how the Chinese economy was “developing” rather than undergoing “adverse changes”. wall street journal.
Regulators “want us to interpret bad news in a positive light,” one central bank adviser told the Wall Street Journal. Financial Times.
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