China’s unemployment rate has steadily dropped from last year’s pandemic peak though a lack of jobs for graduates and a shortage of skilled manufacturing workers point to underlying problems in the labor market.
The urban jobless rate fell to a two-year low of 5% in May, official data showed last week, but unemployment for those between the ages of 16-24 — which captures graduates from school and college — was more than double that at 13.8%.
Anecdotal reports suggest a mismatch between jobs and skills in the economy, which could prevent the jobless rate from falling much further. Part of the reason is China’s unbalanced economic growth since the pandemic, with services industries — which are more suited to graduate jobs — slower to recover than manufacturing.
The National Bureau of Statistics said last week that about 14 million people are expected to enter the urban workforce this year, of which 9.09 million are graduates. China has a full-year target to add more than 11 million urban jobs.(www.aljazeera.com)
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