Youth unemployment in China

China is experiencing high youth unemployment.

On February 14, 2023, Yahoo Finance reported about youth unemployment in China:

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China's youth unemployment rate is once again available to the world, after a six-month blackout period where no new figures were published. Joblessness looks to have dropped considerably since the data was last released in June. But the new figure isn't exactly comparable to previous months — it now excludes full-time students from the calculation. On its face value, youth unemployment in December stood at 14.9%, whereas it touched 21.3% in the summer. Back then, the high-flying number was a focal point for economists, highlighting emerging challenges resulting from China's slowing economy. As fresh graduates poured into the nation's workforce, they faced stagnating industries with a weaker demand for labor. These realities may still hold true, even if the revised methodology provides a smaller number, Nicole Goldin, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote. "The lower result though, is still about three times the overall unemployment rate in China (5.1 percent) and reflects the quandary facing young people there. (For comparison, the OECD average is 10.5 percent.)," she wrote in a Friday post. While headwinds to youth unemployment aren't exclusive to China, the country is mired in broader economic turmoil, from slowing consumption, a debt-burdened property sector, and a stock market in free-fall.

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On January 19, 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported:

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Economists said a revised youth jobless rate for a single month likely wouldn’t sufficiently reassure the public about improved job-market conditions or erase longstanding doubts about the accuracy of the country’s official statistics. “Adjusting how they calculate the figures at this moment may even exacerbate the public’s distrust in official data,” said Dan Wang, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank China. The release of the new figure comes as Chinese leaders have sought to rally the nation in recent weeks to view the economy more positively. Earlier this month, a senior Communist Party official urged the country’s propaganda chiefs to “promote the bright prospects of China’s economy,” echoing a message from a party conference that Chinese leader Xi Jinping presided over last month. China’s National Bureau of Statistics said the calculation of the youth unemployment rate now excludes nearly 62 million students between 16 and 24 years old studying full-time on campuses. This, the bureau said, is in an effort to focus on those with “actual demand for jobs,” such as those who have finished education or those who are only studying part-time. The NBS didn’t provide complete details of its new methodology or how it compares with the old one. One key puzzle is that the NBS previously indicated it didn’t count most students anyway: Before it stopped publishing the old data, the agency said in June there were around 96 million people in the 16 to 24 age group in total, but only 33 million either in work or looking for a job, leaving some 63 million outside the labor force definition.

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China's "full-time children" phenomena

On February 17, 2024, the South China Morning Post reported that China’s young adults choose to be ‘full-time children’, paid by their parents to do chores amid record-high youth unemployment. The Chinese phrase "full-time children" refers to young people who give up working and just live off their parents (See the video: China’s ‘full-time’ children).

See also

• Chinese real estate crisis (2020–present)
• Chinese stock markets