China’s Rising Unemployment Rate: Youth Employment Crisis and Suspicions of Data Falsification

On March 20, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics released the unemployment data for February 2024, revealing that the unemployment rate for non-student individuals aged 16 to 24 in urban areas had reached 16.9%, a 0.8 percentage point increase from January, marking a consecutive rise for two months. Additionally, the unemployment rate for individuals aged 25 to 29 also increased to 7.3%. These statistics have raised doubts among the public regarding the accuracy of official data, especially concerning the potential failure to accurately reflect the employment difficulties faced by Chinese youth. According to a scholar from Hong Kong, the average employment rate among Chinese university students may be as low as 30%.

Many are questioning the accuracy of the official Chinese unemployment data. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in February, the unemployment rate for individuals aged 16 to 24, excluding students, was 16.9%, which was 0.8 percentage points higher than January, marking a consecutive increase for two months. The unemployment rate for individuals aged 25 to 29, excluding students, was 7.3%, a 0.4 percentage point increase from January, reaching a 15-month high.

Doubts surrounding the authenticity of China’s official unemployment data are widespread. Wu Jianzhong, Secretary-General of the Taiwan Prospective Strategy Advancement Association, believes that the officially released data is understated. He questions the exclusion of students from the calculation and highlights the ambiguity surrounding the number of students enrolled and not enrolled in school, which remains unknown to the public.

Assistant Researcher Fang Congyan of Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Studies stated that excluding students from the official calculations leads to inaccuracies and suspicions of embellishment. For example, recent graduates facing challenges in finding employment may either delay their graduation voluntarily or be compelled to do so, yet they would not be accounted for in the unemployment statistics.

Fang Congyan believes that China’s official standards for calculating unemployment and employment are too lenient and fail to reflect the actual situation. For instance, during the week of the survey, working for just one hour or more would qualify as “employment”.

Recently, retired Professor Ding Xueliang from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology estimated in an article for Hong Kong’s media “Sing Tao Daily” that the number of unemployed college students in China is close to 30 million, with an average employment rate of less than 30%. He mentioned conversations with university teachers who reported that the employment rate in some universities is as low as 20%. Career counselors even instruct recent graduates to list themselves as “flexibly employed” or engaged in “self-media” if they fail to find jobs. In recent years, some universities have relaxed the standards for “employment,” considering graduates’ job-seeking “intentions” as formal job offers to inflate the employment rate.

Wu Jianzhong emphasized that the issue now is not just about the accuracy of the unemployment rate but about the public’s confidence in the Chinese government.

According to statistics from the Chinese Ministry of Education, the number of college graduates in China in 2024 reached a record high of 11.79 million.

During this year’s annual Two Sessions meeting, Chinese Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Wang Xiaoping stated that the number of graduates expected to enter the workforce in China this year is projected to reach 12.22 million. The total employment pressure remains high, with structural contradictions becoming more prominent and putting additional pressure on increasing people’s employment and income. Meanwhile, the external environment is becoming more complex and severe. Despite signs of economic recovery domestically, the foundation is not yet stable, which may have a certain impact on employment.

In a report released by the well-known online recruitment platform “Zhaopin” in China, the employment rate of Chinese college graduates in 2024 decreased from 57.6% in the previous year to 55.5%, indicating that nearly half of graduates are unemployed. With last year’s job market struggling to absorb all college graduates, the situation has worsened this year with an additional 430,000 graduates. It is foreseeable that the employment situation for Chinese youth will become even more challenging.

According to official Chinese data, in December 2024, the urban unemployment rate for non-student individuals aged 16 to 24 was 15.7%. However, a study by a scholar from Peking University, Zhang Dandan, suggested that in 2023, the youth unemployment rate in China could have been as high as 46.5%, far exceeding the official figure of 21.3% reported in the same year.

Consulting Committee Member Chen Lipu from Taiwan commented to Radio Free Asia that “It’s possible that the unemployment rate in China could reach 70% this year. This is why China swiftly introduced the policy of no longer issuing unemployment certificates and transitioning to entrepreneurship certificates earlier this year, to proactively prepare for potentially more severe economic impacts this year.”