As China’s youth unemployment keeps rising, Beijing says regional governments need to step up
- Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua pushes for more effective recruitment initiatives and says greater job creation should occur, with an emphasis on supporting fresh graduates
- But economists continue to note that China’s zero-Covid policy makes it difficult for businesses to hire, unsure of when the next lockdown may come
More effective measures should be taken to stabilise China’s employment situation, especially for college graduates who are finding it increasingly difficult to secure jobs, according to Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua.
Hu said that although the current situation is generally positive, complex problems remain unsolved, and his pointed reference to fresh university graduates came on the heels of last week’s official figures showing that the youth unemployment rate – for those aged 16-24 – reached a record high 19.3 per cent in June.
Hu was speaking on Sunday during a trip to Zhejiang province that state media said involved his supervision of work related to stabilising employment, without giving further details.
Zhejiang is located near Shanghai, where lockdowns during the year’s second quarter pushed the city’s urban unemployment rate well beyond the national average.
In June, the youth unemployment rate for the 16-24 age group in the United States was 8.1 per cent, up from 7.8 per cent in May. In May, the European Union’s youth unemployment rate was 13.3 per cent. And in Japan, the rate stood at 3.8 per cent in May.
