Young people in China are still struggling to find a job

BEIJING – A year since the coronavirus pandemic, Chinese youth are still struggling to find a job.

The unemployment rate for people ages 16 to 24 was 13.1% in February, well above the national urban unemployment rate of 5.5%, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday.

The youth unemployment rate of 13.1% is the same as in the first quarter of last year, the height of the coronavirus outbreak in China.

The high figure implies “ongoing challenges from underemployment and pressures in the labor market,” said Bruce Pang, chief of macro and strategy research at China Renaissance. He added that, based on a contraction in labor measures from monthly government and third-party surveys, companies are reluctant to fill vacancies as momentum in the economic recovery slows.

Young people face a lot of competition for jobs.

This year, a record 9.09 million students are expected to enter the workforce, exceeding last year’s record of 8.74 million, according to official figures.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the number of new urban jobs fell to 13.52 million in 2019, from 13.61 million in 2018, according to official figures. Last year, as the world struggled to recover from the pandemic, only 11.86 million new urban jobs were created.

China aims to create 11 million new urban jobs this year and reach an unemployment rate of 5.5%.

In an annual review of the economy this month, Prime Minister Li Keqiang said there is “mounting” pressure to ensure that people have jobs. The Chinese economy grew by 2.3% last year and the authorities have set a conservative growth target of more than 6% for this year.

Unlike countries that have distributed cash to citizens to boost spending, China has focused on supporting businesses – and their employees – with tax cuts and cheaper loans. Li shared with reporters on Thursday how the owner of a pandemic store was able to keep the company’s roughly 20 employees alive with a living allowance.