China’s job market improves a year after coronavirus shock, but young people still face ‘pressure’
- In the first quarter, China’s official surveyed unemployment rate was 5.4 per cent, down 0.4 percentage points from a year earlier
- But young people, particularly fresh graduates from universities, are still having a hard time finding jobs
China’s job market has improved steadily since the height of the coronavirus pandemic early in 2020, but it is still struggling with a shortage of labour and a high number of unemployed graduates.
In the first quarter of the year, China’s official surveyed unemployment rate stood at 5.4 per cent, down 0.4 percentage points from a year earlier when the outbreak first began, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Friday.
It will take some time to resolve the employment problem of young people, and the pressure does exist
“This shows that young people still face difficulties in employment. It could be because a large number of young people are trying to enter the labour market after the Lunar New Year,” NBS spokeswoman Liu Aihua said on Friday.
“It will take some time to resolve the employment problem of young people, and the pressure does exist.”
Typically spring and autumn are peak seasons for graduates looking for jobs. This year, a record high of 9.09 million people will finish tertiary studies, compared to 8.74 million last year.
