What’s new: The surveyed unemployment rate among China’s urban workers expanded to 5.7% in November from 5.5% the previous month as spreading Covid outbreaks hit major cities.
The November figure was the highest since May, when Shanghai was in lockdown, according to data reported Thursday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The 31 major cities recorded a 6.7% jobless rate in November, only slightly lower than the peak of 6.9% in May.
Unemployment among migrant workers rose to 6% from 5.5% in October as labor markets worsened in big cities. Of workers between 16 and 24 years old, 17.1% were unemployed, according to the NBS. The youth jobless rate reached a record 19.9% in July, the highest level since record-keeping began in January 2018.
The context: China’s urban unemployment rate has remained elevated this year, especially in big cities, as Covid-related restrictions disrupted businesses and regulatory clampdowns on the tech, property and private tutoring sectors prompted waves of job cuts.
Stress on the labor market is likely to increase in coming months as the government revamped its “zero-Covid” strategy and abandoned most pandemic control measures, leading to a surge of infections.
For the period between January and November, China’s average urban jobless rate stood at 5.6%.
China had around 16 million people entering the urban labor market this year, including 10.76 million fresh college graduates, government data showed. Beijing has prioritized job creation and aims to create more than 11 million new jobs in urban areas this year, according to the government work report released in March.
Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bob.simison@caixin.com)
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