Amidst China’s continued significant economic decline, official data released by the government indicates that the unemployment rate for young adults aged 16-24 in June was 14.5%, a decrease of 0.4 percentage points from May, raising questions among the public.
On July 17, the National Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China released the unemployment rate statistics for different age groups for the month of June.
The data reveals that excluding students, the urban unemployment rate for individuals aged 16-24 was 14.5%, a decrease of 0.4 percentage points from the previous month; for those aged 25-29, it was 6.7%, down by 0.3 percentage points from the previous month; and for individuals aged 30-59, the unemployment rate was 4.0%, showing a slight increase of 0.1 percentage point from the previous month.
The statistics indicate a continuous decline in the unemployment rates for the age groups of 16-24 and 25-29 for four consecutive months.
Following the release of this data, netizens ridiculed the figures, questioning the accuracy by commenting, “I wonder how many times the data has been manipulated,” “The comrades at the statistics bureau must have worked hard,” “It’s almost like multiplying by two,” “It’s all about flexible employment, who counts as unemployed,” “Around me, plenty of people above 35 are unemployed, can those who are self-employed count as unemployed?”
“A friend’s child graduated from college, out of a class of 20 people, only two started small businesses, the rest couldn’t find suitable jobs, and the available jobs are either delivering food or making bubble tea,” “In my case, my application for unemployment registration was rejected because I used to be a senior executive, after puzzling over it, I realized I had been listed as a company director a few years ago.”
“Unemployment rates for the age group of 40-45 should be monitored,” “There will be over 10 million college graduates in July, and several million vocational school graduates as well.”
In July 2023, the Communist Party’s statistics bureau announced that the youth unemployment rate for June was 21.3%; on August 15, they declared the suspension of releasing youth unemployment and related data from that month onwards.
In January 2024, the bureau reported that in December 2023, the national urban survey unemployment rate was 5.1%. Excluding students, the surveyed unemployment rates for individuals aged 16-24, 25-29, and 30-59 were 14.9%, 6.1%, and 3.9%, respectively.
This marks the first time since August 2023, when the official youth unemployment data was suspended under the pretext of further “optimizing” workforce survey statistics, that the data for the unemployment rate of young adults aged 16-24 has been made public.
Zhang Dandan, an associate professor at Peking University, previously stated in an article that if about 16 million individuals practicing “lying flat” and living off their parents were considered unemployed, the actual youth unemployment rate in March 2023 could reach as high as 46.5%, significantly surpassing the officially announced 19.7%.